^•i'..\  Ati'-i  piE'ru.' 


3  1822  00341  0156 
PR 

^023 

.P3 

1902a 


A 

A 

0 
0 
0 

2 
9 
2 

9 
3 
1 

3 


i/ewjTr  OF    I 
N  OICQO       V 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CA   IFORNIA   SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  00341  0156    .    ,/ 


^ 


ENGLISH   MEN   OF   LETTERS 
EDITED  Br  JOHN  MORLEY 

MATTHEIF  ARNOLD 


-s- 


•The 


1 

ENGLISH  MEN  OF   LETTERS 


MATTHEW     ARNOLD 


BY 

HERBERT    \V.    PAUL 


THE    NL^CMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1902 

Mi7  ri^!iti   rfifrTfd 


Copyright,  1902, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  July,  1902. 


Norfaool)  ^rtss 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mas9.  U.S.A. 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

The  only  authority  for  the  events  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
life,  besides  Mr.  Richard  Garnett's  excellent  article 
in  the  Dictionary  of  ]\^ational  Biography,  is  the  collec- 
tion of  his  letters  in  two  volumes,  edited  by  Mr.  George 
Eussell  (Macmillan,  1895).  Sir  Joshua  Fitch's  account 
of  ^Mr.  Arnold's  public  services  as  Inspector  of  Schools 
in  the  seventh  volume  of  Great  Educators  (Heinemann) 
is  admirably  clear,  and  Islv.  Burnett  Smart's  Bibli- 
ography (The  Dryden  Press,  1892)  cannot  be  over- 
praised. Professor  Saintsbury's  lively  and  learned 
study  in  ]\[essrs.  Blackwood's  Modern  English  Write7'S 
(1899)  is  rather  unsympathetic  on  the  theological  and 
political  side,  but  full  of  interest  and  suggestion.  I 
have  sometimes  owed  most  to  Mv.  Saintsbury  when 
I  have  been  least  able  to  agree  with  him. 

H.  W.  P. 


CONTENTS 


ClLVrTER    I 

PAGK 
ISTRODCCTORY      1 


f  11 A  ITER    11 
RiGBT  AM)  Oxford  .... 


CHAPTER   III 
P^\RLY  Poems 16 

CHAPTER    IV 
Work  and  Pi^ktuy  ........      30 

CHAPTER    V 
TiiF,  Oxford  Cii.vm  ........       61 

CHAPTER   VI 
Essays  in  Criticism 72 

CHAPTER    VII 
TiiF,  End  of  the  I'iiofessorship      .....       91 

CHAPTER    VIII 

The  Xeir  I'orms 01) 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

CHAPTER   IX 

PAGE 

Education 106 

CHAPTER   X 
Mk.  Arnold's  Philosophy 113 

CHAPTER   XI 
Mr.  Arnold's  Theology 130 

CHAPTER   XII 
Mr.  Arnold's  Politics    .......     145 

CHAPTER   XIII 
The  Aftermath 159 

CHAPTER   XIV 
Conclusion 170 

Index 179 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTOET 

The  fourteen  years  which  have  elapsed  since  jNIatthew 
Arnold's  death  have  added  greatly  to  the  number  of 
his  readers,  especially  the  readers  of  his  poems.  No 
poet  of  modern  times,  perhaps  no  English  poet  of  any 
time,  appeals  so  directly  and  so  exclusively  to  the  cul- 
tivated taste  of  the  educated  classes.  To  say  that  a 
classical  education  was  necessary  for  understanding 
him  would  perhaps  be  to  go  too  far.  But  a  capacity 
for  appreciating  form  and  style,  the  charm  of  rhythm 
and  the  beauty  of  words,  is  undoubtedly  essential. 
It  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Arnold  with  truth,  and  it  is  his 
chief  praise,  that  the  more  widely  mental  culture 
spreads,  the  higher  his  fame  will  be.  He  was  not, 
indeed,  a  profound  thinker.  He  did  not  illuminate, 
like  Wordsworth,  with  a  single  flash,  the  abysses  of 
man's  nature,  and  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  human 
soul.  He  was  not,  as  Plato  was,  a  spectator  of  all 
time  and  all  existence.  His  aim  was,  as  he  said  of 
Sophocles,  to  see  life  steadily,  and  see  it  whole.  But 
he  saw  it  as  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  letters.  He 
interpreted  greater  minds  than  his  own.  Ho  almost 
fulfilled  his  ideal.      He  knew,  so  far  at  least  as  the 

B  1 


2  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Western  world  is  concerned,  the  best  that  had  been 
,  said  and  thought  in  all  ages.  Next  to  Milton,  he  was 
;  the  most  learned  of  English  poets. 

How  far  Matthew  Arnold  will  suffer  from  having 
been  too  much  the  child  of  his  own  age,  it  is  as  yet 
too  soon  to  say.  The  "  Zeit-Geist  "  has  its  limitations. 
It  is  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  not  the  spirit  of  a  day,  that 
is  justified  of  all  her  children.  "  Thyrsis  "  is  a  very 
beautiful  poem,  not  much  less  beautiful  than  ''Ado- 
nais,"  though  very  unlike  it.  But  Clough  was  not 
Keats.  Keats  is  near  to  every  one  of  us,  while  Clough 
is  already  far  away.  To  Mr.  Arnold,  however,  Clough 
was  not  merely  a  personal  friend.  He  was  the  embodi- 
ment of  Oxford  in  the  thirties  and  forties,  of  a  special 
type  now  rare,  if  not  extinct.  Matthew  Arnold's 
passionate  love  of  Oxford  has  inspired  some  of  his 
noblest  verse,  and  some  of  his  most  musical  prose. 
All  Oxford  men  know,  or  used  to  know,  the  exquisite 
sentences  about  the  beautiful  city  with  her  dreaming 
towers,  breathing  the  last  enchantment  of  the  middle 
age.  It  was  the  unreformed  Oxford  which  Matthew 
Arnold  knew,  and  he  represented  the  high-water  mark 
of  what  it  could  do.  The  "  grand  old  fortifying  classi- 
cal curriculum  "  at  which  he  laughed,  and  in  which  he 
believed,  was  seen  at  its  best  in  the  Oxford  of  those 
days.  There  was  no  "  specialising."  There  were 
classics,  and  there  were  mathematics,  and  there  was 
the  river,  and  there  was  Headington  Hill  with  Shot- 
over  beyond  it.  If  that  did  not  satisfy  a  man,  he 
must  have  been  hard  to  please.  At  any  rate,  he  was 
not  entitled  to  take  a  degree  in  Tamil,  with  a  school 
and  examiners  all  to  himself. 

Education  was  the  business  of  Matthew  Arnold's 


I.]  DsTRODUCTORY  3 

life.  He  understood  it  in  the  broadest  sense.  There 
was  nothing  narrow,  technical,  or  pedantic  about  his 
scholarship  or  his  criticism.  But  in  the  proper  sense 
of  a  much  abused  term  his  work  is  academic.  It  is 
steeped  in,  one  might  say  saturated  with,  culture.  It 
was  written  by  a  scholar  for  scholars,  and  only  scholars 
can  fully  appreciate  it.  I\Iatthew  Arnold  fulhlled  the 
precept  of  Horace.  He  turned  over  his  Greek  models 
by  day  and  by  night.  He  brought  everything  to  the 
classical  touchstone.  Whatever  was  not  Greek  was 
barbarian.  ''Except,"  Avrote  Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  a 
moment  of  rare  enthusiasm,  "except  the  blind  forces 
of  nature,  nothing  moves  in  this  world  which  is  not 
Greek  in  its  origin."  Such  was  substantially  Mr. 
Arnold's  creed,  though  as  his  father's  son  he  recog- 
nised that  Hebraism  entered  with  Hellenism  into  the 
structure  of  the  Christian  Church. 

Yet  both  as  a  poet  and  as  a  critic  Matthew  Arnold 
was  essentially  a  man  of  his  time.  He  was  singularly 
receptive  of  ideas,  even  when  they  were  ephemeral. 
He  loved  to  dabble  in  politics,  but  the  best  parts  of 
his  political  writings  are  the  quotations  from  Burke. 
He  did  more  than  dabble  in  theology.  He  took  the 
doctors  of  the  Tubingen  school  for  apostles,  and 
treated  a  phase  of  Biblical  speculation  as  if  it  were 
permanent  truth.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  dry  and 
minute  criticism  of  detail,  like  Bishop  Colenso's.  He 
addicted  himself  to  Ewald  and  to  Eenan.  He  threw 
himself  into  the  Liberal  reaction  against  Tractarian- 
ism,  whose  attitude  to  the  Great  First  Cause  has  been 
described  by  a  satirist  in  the  memorable  line  — 

"  Philosophy  is  lenient ;  he  may  go." 


4  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Matthew  Arnold's  literary  criticism,  once  regarded 
by  young  enthusiasts  as  a  revelation,  has  long  since 
taken  a  secure  place  in  English  letters.  Like  his 
poetry,  unlike  his  theology  and  his  politics,  it  has 
original  and  intrinsic  value.     It  is  penetrating  as  well 

^  as  brilliant,  conscientious  as  well  as  imaginative. 
Matthew  Arnold  may  be  said  to  have  done  for 
literature  almost  what  Ruskin  did  for  art.  He  re- 
minded, or  informed,  the  British  public  that  criticism 
was  a  serious  thing ;  that  good  criticism  was  just  as 
important  as  good  authorship ;  that  it  was  not  a 
question  of  individual  taste,  but  partly  of  received 

-  authority,  and  partly  of  trained  judgment.  His  own 
masters,  besides  the  old  Greeks,  were  chiefly  Goethe 
and  Sainte-Beuve.  But  few  critics  have  been  so  thor- 
oughly original,  and  still  fewer  have  had  so  large  a 
share  of  the  "  daemonic  "  faculty,  the  faculty  which 
awakens  intelligent  enthusiasm  in  others.  Essays  in 
Criticism  is  one  of  the  indispensable  books.  Not  to 
have  read  it  is  to  be  ignorant  of  a  great  intellectual 
event. 

In  his  double  character  of  poet  and  critic,  Matthew 
Arnold  may  be  called  our  English  Goethe.  This  is 
not  to  put  the  two  men  on  a  level ;  for,  of  course,  one 
could  not  without  absurdity  talk  of  Goethe  as  a  Ger- 
man Arnold.  Goethe  is  one  of  the  world's  poets. 
Matthew  Arnold  is  little  known  to  those  who  do  not 
speak  the  English  tongue.  But  among  them  his  repu- 
tation widens,  and  will  widen,  as  knowledge  and  the 
love  of  books  spread  through  all  classes  of  society. 
To  all  who  care  for  things  of  the  mind  his  work  must 
ever  be  dear.  Something  of  his  own  radiant  and  sym- 
pathetic personality  pervades  all  his  writings,  except 


1.]  INTRODUCTORY  6 

perhaps  when  he  is  dealing  with  Dissenters.  It 
would  have  been  well  if  he  had  applied  the  critical 
pruuing-knife  to  the  exuberant  mannerism  which 
sometimes  disfigures  his  style.  The  repetition  of 
pet  phrases  is  a  literary  vice.  But  Matthew  Arnold 
is  more  than  strong  enough  to  live  in  spite  of  his 
faults.  His  best  poetry,  and  his  best  prose,  are 
among  the  choicest  legacies  bequeathed  by  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  the  twentieth.  If  they  belong  to 
an  age,  they  are  the  glory  of  it,  for  they  show  what 
golden  ore  it  could  extract,  and  hand  down  to  the 
future,  from  the  buried  accumulations  of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  II 

.  g.  .     '  RUGBY   AND    OXFORD 

Matthew  Arnold  was  born  at  Laleham,  near  Staines, 
in  the  county  of  jMiddlesex,  on  Ch.ristmas  Eve,  1822. 
:  Laleliam  is  situated  on  the  Thames,  for  which  from  his 
earliest  years  he  had  a  passionate  love.  His  father, 
Dr.  Arnold  of  Eugby,  the  famous  schoolmaster,  had 
nine  children,  of  whom  Matthew  was  the  eldest  son. 
Mr.  Thomas  Arnold,  however,  did  not  become  Dr. 
Arnold,  or  go  to  Rugby,  till  1828.  In  1822  he  was 
taking  private  pupils,  and  forming  the  theories  of 
education  which  he  afterwards  carried  out  in  a  more 
conspicuous  field.  His  wife,  born  Mary  Penrose,  who 
lived  till  1873,  having  survived  her  husband  more  than 
thirty  years,  was  a  woman  of  remarkable  character  and 
intellect,  with  whom  Matthew  kept  up  to  the  day  of 
her  death  a  mentally  sympathetic  as  well  as  personally 
affectionate  correspondence.  When  the  family  re- 
moved to  Rugby,  Matthew  was  five,  but  two  years 
afterwards  he  returned  to  Laleham  as  the  pupil  of  his 
uncle,  the  Reverend  John  Buckland.  The  country 
round  Rugby  is,  as  Dr.  Arnold  used  pathetically  to 
complain,  among  the  dullest  and  ugliest  in  England. 
As  a  contrast  he  took  a  house  at  Fox  How,  near 
G-rasmere,  on  the  Rotha,  where  he  spent  most  of  the 
holidays  with  his  wife  and  children.     The  eldest  boy 

6 


CHAP.  II.]  RUGBY   AND   OXFORD  7 

thus  grew  up  under  the  shadow  of  Wordsworth,  whose 
brilliant  and  penetrating  interpreter  he  was  destined 
to  become.  In  August  1836,  being  then  thirteen  and 
a  half,  ]\Iatthew  was  sent  to  Winchester,  of  which 
Dr.  Moberly,  an  elegant  scholar,  long  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Salisbury,  had  just  been  appointed  head- 
master. Dr.  Arnold  was  himself  a  Wykehamist,  and 
had  a  high  opinion  of  his  old  school.  But  after  a 
year,  in  August  1837,  Matthew  was  removed  from 
Winchester  to  be  under  his  father's  eye  in  the  school- 
house  at  Rugby,  where  he  remained  until  he  went  up 
to  Oxford  in  1841. 

Rugby  under  Arnold  has  been  made  familiar  to 
millions  of  readers  by  Tom  Broicn''s  School  Days. 
When  Arnold  was  a  candidate.  Dr.  Hawkins,  the 
Provost  of  Oriel,  prophesied  that  if  elected  he  would 
revolutionise  the  public  schools.  He  certainly  revolu- 
tionised Rugby.  When  he  came  there,  it  was  little 
more  than  an  ordinary  grammar  school  Avith  boarders. 
Wlien  he  died,  it  was  one  of  the  most  famous  and  pop- 
ular schools  in  England.  The  monitorial  system  was 
not  really  his  invention.  He  introduced  it  from  Win- 
chester. But  he  invested  it  with  a  moral  significance 
which  had  not  previously  belonged  to  it,  and  he 
leavened  the  whole  school  by  his  own  powerful  person- 
ality. As  his  accomplished  biographer,  Dean  Stanley, 
says,  "  Throughout,  whether  in  the  school  itself,  or  in 
its  after  effects,  the  one  image  that  we  have  before  us 
is  not  Rugby,  but  Arnold."  ^Matthew  Arnold  bore  very 
little  resemblance  to  his  stern  Puritanical  father. 
Dr.  Arnold  was  in  deadly  earnest  about  everything, 
and  was  wholly  devoid  of  humour.  He  was  always 
declaiming  against  the  childishness   of   boys,  which 


8  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

after  all  is  not  a  bad  thing,  and  better  than  the 
premature  mannishness  which  the  monitorial  system 
encourages.  But  he  was  in  his  way  a  great  man.  He 
had  extraordinary  force  of  character  and  strength  of 
will.  He  had  a  magnetic  influence  upon  boys.  He 
was  absolutely  single-minded  and  sincere.  His  piety 
was  deep  and  genuine,  quite  without  suspicion  of  cant 
or  conventionalism.  His  classical  scholarship  was  not 
only  sound  and  thorough,  but  broad,  robust,  and 
philosophical.  As  a  teacher  he  stood  high,  as  a 
preacher  higher.  There  have  been  few  better  writers 
of  English  prose  than  Dr.  Arnold,  and  it  is  perhaps  his 
high  literary  sense  which  was  his  most  distinctive 
bequest  to  his  son.  In  a  letter  to  his  old  pupil 
Vaughan,  afterwards  Master  of  the  Temple,  Dr. 
Arnold  says:  "There  is  an  actual  pleasure  in  contem- 
plating so  perfect  a  management  of  so  perfect  an 
instrument  as  is  exhibited  in  Plato's  language,  even  if 
the  matter  were  as  worthless  as  the  words  of  Italian 
music;  whereas  the  sense  is  only  less  admirable  in 
many  places  than  the  language."  But  Thucydides  was 
of  course  his  favourite  author;  and  the  general  reader, 
as  distinguished  from  the  philological  student,  can 
have  at  this  day  no  better  guide  to  the  greatest  of  all 
historians  than  Dr.  Arnold. 

Dr.  Arnold  was,  says  Dean  Stanley,  "the  elder 
brother  and  playfellow  of  his  children."  In  that  fine 
poem  with  the  unfortunate  metre,  "  Rugby  Chapel," 
the  son  puts  it  rather  differently :  — 

"  If,  in  the  paths  of  the  world, 
Stones  might  have  wounded  thy  feet, 
Toil  or  dejection  have  tried 
Thy  spirit,  of  that  we  say 


n.]  RUGBY  AND  OXFORD  9 

Nothing  !    To  us  thou  wert  still 
Cht'Crful,  and  helpful,  and  firm. 
Therefore  to  tiiee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself  ; 
And,  at  the  end  of  tliy  day, 
O  faithful  shepherd  !  to  come, 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand." 

The  thought  expressed  in  these  lines,  the  idea  of  a 
good  man  not  content  with  saving  his  own  soul,  but 
devoting  himself  also  to  the  salvation  of  others,  is 
repeated  in  one  of  Matthew  Arnold's  most  touching 
letters  to  his  mother  many  years  after  his  father's 
death.  It  was  a  singularly  delightful  trait  in  a  most 
endearing  character,  that  Mr.  Arnold  always  in  writ- 
ing to  her  dwelt  upon  what  "Papa"  would  have 
thought  of  things  if  he  had  been  alive.  Dr.  Arnold 
died  in  1842;  and  he  was,  thought  his  son,  the  tirst 
English  clergyman  who  could  speak  as  freely  upon 
religious  subjects  as  if  he  had  been  a  layman.  He 
was,  however,  strictly  orthodox  in  all  the  essential 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith.  He  was  suspected  of 
heresy  on  no  better  grounds  than  his  dislike  of  the 
Oxford  ]\rovement,  which  was  strong,  and  his  know- 
ledge of  German,  which  Avas  thorough.  He  took  the 
Liberal  side  in  the  first  Hampden  controversy,  but 
the  charges  against  Dr.  Hampden  completely  broke 
down.  In  politics  he  was  a  decided,  though  indepen- 
dent Whig,  and  he  wrote  a  pamphlet  in  favour  of 
Catholic  Emancipation.  Yet  he  held  as  firmly  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  once  held  the  theory  of  a  Christian  state, 
and  he  consistently  opposed  the  enfranchisement  of 
the  Jews.  In  one  respect  he  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
age.     "  Woe,"  he  said,  "  to  the  generation  which  inhal)- 


10  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

its  England  wlien  the  coal-fields  are  exhausted,  and  the 
National  Debt  has  not  been  paid."  Although  he  died 
four  years  before  the  Kepeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  he  was 
a  staunch  advocate  of  free  exchange.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  trace  the  influence  of  the  father  in  the  politics 
of  the  son. 

We  have  the  authority  of  Matthew  Arnold's  oldest 
and  most  intimate  friend,  Lord  Coleridge,  for  the  fact, 
which  might  perhaps  have  been  surmised,  that  between 
father  and  son  there  was  more  affection  than  sympathy. 
Dr.  Arnold  abhorred  "mere  cleverness,"  and  humour 
appeared  to  him  a  rather  profane  indiscretion.  His 
eldest  son  was  excessively  clever,  and  full  of  a  gaiety 
which  he  never  at  any  time  of  life  made  the  smallest 
attempt  to  subdue.  Lord  Coleridge  hints  that  there 
were  collisions  between  them,  and  one  can  partly 
believe  it.  But  he  adds  that  when  the  doctor  had 
trouble,  as  even  schoolmasters  sometimes  have,  he 
found  comfort  in  the  filial  piety  of  one  whose  genius 
he  did  not  live  to  acknowledge.  The  only  poem  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  which  his  father  saw  was  ''Alaric 
at  Rome,"  recited  in  Eugby  School  on  the  12th  of  June 
1840.  The  motto  from  Childe  Harold,  prefixed  to  this 
composition,  prepares  one  for  its  character,  which  is 
distinctly  Byronic.  It  is  not  much  above  the  ordinary 
level  of  such  things,  and  many  men  have  written  as 
good  verses  when  they  were  boys,  who  never  came 
within  measurable  distance  of  being  poets.  One 
stanza,  however,  deserves  to  be  quoted,  because  the 
first  two  lines  are  the  earliest  example  of  a  figure  the 
writer  often  afterwards  employed :  — 

"Yes,  there  are  stories  registered  on  high, 
Yes,  there  are  stains  time's  fingers  cannot  hlot, 


II.]  RUGBY   AND  OXFORD  11 

Deeds  that  shall  live  when  they  who  did  them,  die  ; 
Thiugs  that  may  cease,  but  never  be  forgot : 
Yet  some  there  are,  their  very  lives  would  give 
To  be  remember "d  thus,  and  yet  they  cannot  live." 

The  Last  couplet  is  sadl}-  wooden,  and  shows  that  the 
young  versitier  had  not  got  his  stride.  IMacauhiy  is 
almost  the  only  man  who  has  successfully  imitated 
without  parodying  Byron. 

In  this  same  year,  1840,  Matthew  Arnold  won  an  ' 
open  scholarship  at  Balliol,  and  in  1841  he  Avent  into 
residence.  Oxford  was  then  in  the  full  swing  of  the 
Tractarian  movement.  Kewman  had  not  yet  retired 
to  Littlemore,  and  was  still  drawing  crowded  congrega- 
tions at  St.  Mary's.  The  fascination  of  that  extraor- 
dinary man  attracted  minds  so  utterly  dissimilar  to 
his  own  as  ]\rark  Pattison's  and  Anthony  Froude's. 
But  upon  Matthew  Arnold  he  seems  to  have  had  no 
effect  whatever.  Perhaps  the  influence  of  Dr.  Arnold, 
who  regarded  Newman  as  something  very  like  Anti- 
christ, was  too  strong.  In  1841,  just  before  the 
Whigs  went  out  of  office.  Lord  Melbourne  appointed 
Dr.  Arnold  Regius  Professor  of  History,  and  in  De- 
cember of  that  year,  to  a  crowded  audience,  largely 
comi)osed  of  old  Rugbeians,  he  delivered  his  inaugural 
lecture.  In  the  following  June  he  died,  and  his  mem- 
ory was  consecrated  by  his  early  death.  ^Matthew 
Arnold's  own  temperament,  however,  though  not 
irreligiou.s,  was  utterly  unclerical,  and  he  never  con- 
templated, as  most  undergraduates  not  in  easy  cir- 
cumstances at  that  time  did,  the  possibility  of  taking 
orders. 

Except  for   a   few   venerable   landmarks,    and    the 
exaiiiin.'itioii  in  the  school  of  Lileroi  llumaniores,  there 


12  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chai-. 

is  little  left  now  of  the  Oxford  which  Matthew  Arnold 
entered  sixty  years  ago.  Before  the  Commission  of 
1850  the  University  was  in  form  what  it  had  been  in 
the  middle  ages.  All  power  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Hebdomadal  Board,  and  the  Hebdomadal  Board  was 
simply  the  Heads  of  Houses.  The  separate  Colleges 
kept  strictly  to  themselves,  there  were  no  combined 
lectures,  and  no  unattached  students.  Every  under- 
graduate subscribed  the  Thirtj^-lSTine  Articles,  so  that 
only  members  of  the  Church  of  England  could  enter 
the  University. 

Such,  at  least,  was  the  theory,  though  of  course  in 
practice  religious  tests  exclude  only  the  conscientious. 
But  a  society  confined  to  one  ecclesiastical  organisation 
gave  itself  up  to  the  vehemence  of  ecclesiastical  dis- 
putes. Nonconformity  was  not  represented.  Eome 
proved  a  powerful  attraction,  and  young  men,  as  Pat- 
tison  puts  it,  spent  the  time  that  should  have  been 
devoted  to  study  in  discussing  which  was  the  true 
Church.  At  Balliol  there  was  perhaps  more  intellec- 
tual activity  than  at  any  other  college.  The  scholar- 
ships and  fellowships,  as  was  rare  in  those  days,  were 
open.  Dr.  Jenkyns,  the  Master,  though  no  great 
scholar  himself,  was  jealous  for  Balliol's  intellectual 
reputation,  and  had  some  at  least  of  the  qualities 
which  in  a  larger  world  are  called  statesmanship. 
Mr.  Jowett,  then  a  young  Eellow,  was  beginning  the 
long  career  which  will  always  be  associated  with  the 
name  of  Balliol.  Of  Dr.  Arnold's  old  pupils  at  Balliol, 
Stanley  had  become  a  Fellow  of  University,  and 
Clough  a  Fellow  of  Oriel.  Among  Matthew  Arnold's 
contemporaries  his  closest  friends  were  John  Duke 
Coleridge,  afterwards  Lord  Chief-Justice  of  England, 


11.]  RUGBY   AND   OXFORD  13 

and  John  Campbell  Shairp,  afterwards  Principal  of  the 
United  College,  St.  Andrew's.  Shairp's  lines  about 
]\[atthew  Arnold  are  too  hackneyed  for  quotation. 
They  describe  the  debonair  gaiety  with  which  all  his 
friends  are  familiar,  and  which  he  never  lost.  The 
"  home  of  lost  causes,  and  forsaken  beliefs,  and  unp()])u- 
lar  names,  and  impossible  loyalties,"  was  dearer  to  Mr. 
Arnold  than  Kugby,  or  even  Lalehani.  For  the  country 
round  Oxford  he  had  a  passion,  which  found  full  vent 
in  "The  Scholar  Gipsy"  and  in  "Thyrsis."  For  the 
squabbles  about  Tract  Number  Ninety,  and  "  Ideal 
"Ward's  "  Degree,  he  did  not  care  two  straws.  jNIax 
Ml'iUer  has  described  in  his  Autobiography  the  amaze- 
ment which  he,  a  young  German,  fresh  from  Leipzig 
and  Berlin,  felt  at  the  spectacle  of  religious  disputes 
having  no  intelligible  connection  with  religion.  JNIat- 
thew  Arnold's  view  of  them  was  much  the  same  as 
^lax  Midler's. 

In  the  year  after  his  father's  death,  1843,  jNIatthew 
Arnold  won  theNewdigate  with  a  poem  on  "  Cromwell." 
lie  and  Tennyson  are  exceptions  to  the  rule  that  prizes 
for  poetry  do  not  fall  to  poets.  But  "  Cromwell  *'  is 
even  less  remarkable  than  "  Alaric  at  Rome."  Written, 
as  all  Newdigates  must  be,  in  heroic  rhyme,  it  has  flow 
and  smoothness  of  numbers  without  inspiration,  or 
even  distinction  of  style.  There  is  one  obvious  touch 
of  "Wordsworth,  or,  as  some  will  have  it,  of  Words- 
worth's wife  — 

"  Yet  all  high  sounds  that  mountain  children  hear 
Flash'd  from  thy  soul  upon  thine  inward  ear." 

But  Wordsworth  had  as  yet  no  reason  to  be  proud  of 
his  pupil.     There  is  more  promise  of  the  future  in  the 


14  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Rugby  poem  than  in  the  Oxford  one,  and  more  of  the 
feeling  for  nature  which  was  afterwards  so  conspicuous. 
Matthew  Arnold's  published  Letters  unfortunately  do 
not  date  back  to  his  Oxford  days,  which  must  have 
been  among  the  fullest  and  the  most  enjoyable  of  his 

-  full  and  happy  life.  We  know  from  Lord  Coleridge 
that  he  belonged  to  "  The  Decade,"  a  small  debating 
Society,  where,  as  that  great  lover  of  argument  says, 
they  "  fought  to  the  stumps  of  their  intellects."  Per- 
haps the  poet  neglected  the  schools.  At  any  rate,  like 
his  friend  Clough  a  few  years  before  him,  he  was  placed 
in  the  second  class  at  the  final  examination  for  Classical 

-  Honours.     But  this  comparative  failure  was  more  than 
redeemed,  in  his  case  as  in  dough's,  by  a  Fellowship  at 

f  Oriel,  of  which  his  father  had  also  been  a  Fellow.  He 
■  was  elected  in  1845,  when  an  Oriel  Fellowship  was  still 
I  regarded  as  the  most  brilliant  crown  of  an  Oxford 
career.  Dr.  Hawkins,  the  famous  Provost,  who  brought 
to  the  government  of  a  college  an  ability  greater  than 
has  often  been  employed  in  the  misgovernment  of 
kingdoms,  would  not  allow  a  vacancy  to  be  advertised. 
If  people,  he  said,  wanted  to  know  whether  there  was 
a  vacant  Fellowship  at  Oriel,  they  might  come  and 
ask.  Certainly  the  College  of  Whately  and  Newman, 
of  Clough  and  Church,  of  Matthew  Arnold  and  his 
father,  had  good  reason  to  be  proud  of  its  sons.  But 
it  would  not  have  suited  Matthew  Arnold  to  become  a 
College  Don.  He  was  essentially  a  man  of  the  world, 
loving  society  in  its  widest  sense,  a  scholar  by  tempera- 
ment and  taste,  but  delighting  to  mix  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  his  fellow-creatures.  Although,  like 
most  Oxford  men  of  his  generation,  he  had  no  scientific 
bent  or  training,  his  interests  were  too  many  rather 


II.]  RUGBY  AND   OXFORD  15 

than  too  few.  Xanowness  was  never  among  his 
faults.  He  was  rather  too  apt  to  think  that  there  was 
no  subject  upon  which  an  educated  man  is  not  compe- 
tent to  form  an  opinion.  Perhaps  the  free  life  of 
unreformed  Oxford,  Avith  its  lax  discipline,  its  few 
examinations,  its  ample  leisure  for  social  intercourse 
of  the  best  and  highest  kind,  as  of  others  with  which 
the  biographer  of  Matthew  Arnold  has  no  concern, 
fostered  a  tendency  to  diffusiveness,  as  well  as  a  belief 
that  everything  was  open  for  discussion.  As  a  critic 
Matthew  Arnold  was  not  free  from  a  dogmatism  of  his 
own.  But  the  chief  lesson  which  he  took  away  from 
Oxford  was  the  Platonic  maxim,  (Slos  di-e^'e'rao-ros  oi 
I3lu)t6<;,  —  "life  without  the  spirit  of  inquiry  is  not 
worth  living." 


CHAPTER  III 

EAKLY   POEMS 

After  taking  his  degree,  which  would  have  shocked 
his  father,  and  winning  his  Fellowship,  which  would 
have  delighted  him,  Matthew  Arnold  returned  to 
Rugby,  and  taught  classics  in  the  fifth  form.  Thus 
began  his  long  connection  with  education,  which  only 
ceased  two  years  before  his  death.  Dr.  Arnold's  suc- 
cessor in  the  headmastership  of  Rugby  was  Dr.  Tait, 
a  less  brilliant  scholar,  but  a  man  of  great  dignity  and 
profound  sagacity,  whose  full  powers  were  not  tested 
until  he  came  to  direct  the  Church  of  England,  and  to 
represent  her  in  the  House  of  Lords,  at  a  period  of 
momentous  interest  and  importance.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  no  other  public  school  in  England 
has  been  governed  within  so  short  a  time  by  three  men 
so  able,  eminent,  and  influential  as  Dr.  Arnold,  Dr.  Tait, 
and  Dr.  Temple.  Two  of  them  became  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury.  The  third  might  have  eclipsed  them 
both  if  he  had  not  been  cnt  off  prematurely  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  physical  and  intellectual  vigour.  It 
is  curious  that  not  one  of  them  was  a  Rugby  man. 
Many  years  afterwards,  at  a  dinner  given  within  the 
walls  of  Balliol,  Mr.  Arnold,  with  characteristic  irony 
and  urbanity,  contrasted  Archbishop  Tait  and  himself 
as  types  of  the  Balliol  man  who  had  succeeded  and  the 

16 


CHAr.  III.]  EARLY   TOEMS  17 

Balliol  man  who  had  failed  in  life.  It  is  probable  that 
these  few  months  at  Kugby  improved  and  confirmed 
the  accuracy  of  ]\[atthew  Arnold's  scholarship,  which 
distinguishes  his  classical  poems,  and  his  "  Lectures  on 
Translating  Homer."  There  is  a  good  deal  more  to  be 
said  for  gerund-grinding  than  Carlyle  would  allow. 

^Iv.  Arnold,  however,  was  not  destined  to  remain 
long  a  schoolmaster.  He  soon  became  the  citizen  of  a 
larger  world  than  Rugby,  and  few  indeed  have  been 
better  qualified  to  instruct  or  to  adorn  it.  In  1847  he 
was  made  private  secretary  to  Lord  Lansdowne,  then 
President  of  the  Council  in  the  administration  of  Lord 
John  Russell.  Lord  Lansdowne  was  one  of  those 
statesmen  who  play  a  great  part  in  political  history 
without  filling  a  large  space  in  the  newspapers. 
Without  striking  abilities,  and  without  ambition  of 
any  kind,  he  contrived  by  his  personal  tact  and  calm 
wisdom  to  reconcile  the  differences  of  the  Whig  party, 
to  keep  more  brilliant  men  than  himself  out  of  mis- 
chief, and  to  lead  the  House  of  Lords.  He  had  also 
the  pleasant  and  valuable  gift  of  recognising  early 
promise,  together  with  the  rare  and  enviable  power 
of  bringing  young  men  forward  and  giving  them  their 
chance.  It  was  he  who  brought  jMacaiday  into  the 
House  of  Commons  as  ^Member  for  Calne,  and  to  him 
the  country  owes  it  that  IMatthew  Arnold  had  the 
oj)portunity  of  doing  for  popular  education  what  no 
one  else  could  have  done.  He  was  a  real,  though  a 
very  moderate,  Liberal,  and  ^Matthew  Arnold's  politics 
were  substantially  those  of  his  patron. 

The  earliest  of  Mr.  Arnold's  Letters,  edited  by 
^fr.  fJcorgo  Russell,  and  published  by  INFessrs.  Mac- 
millan,  is  dated  the  2nd  of  January  1848,  on  his  way  to 

0 


18  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Bowood,  Lord  Lansdowue's  house  in  Wiltsliire.  It 
was  apparently  his  first  visit,  for  he  tells  his  mother, 
to  whom  the  letter  is  written,  that  he  does  not  expect 
to  "know  a  soul  there."  But  Matthew  Arnold  was 
never  shy  ;  and  Lord  Lansdowne,  as  Macaulay  testifies, 
was  the  most  gracious  of  hosts.  Of  the  society  of  Bo- 
wood, however,  we  have  in  the  letters  no  glimpse.  On 
this  January  day  in  the  year  of  Kevolutions  the  writer 
had  come  from  his  old  home  at  Laleham,  and  he  gives  an 
enthusiastic  description  of  the  country.  "  Yesterday," 
he  says,  "  I  was  at  Chertsey,  the  poetic  town  of  our 
childhood,  as  opposed  to  the  practical,  historical 
Staines ;  it  is  across  the  river,  reached  by  no  bridges 
and  roads,  but  by  the  primitive  ferry,  the  meadow 
path,  the  Al)bey  river  with  its  wooden  bridge,  and  the 
narrow  lane  by  the  old  wall ;  and,  itself  the  stillest  of 
country  towns  backed  by  St.  Ann's,  leads  nowhere  but 
to  the  heaths  and  pines  of  Surrey.  How  unlike  the 
journey  to  Staines,  and  the  great  road  through  the 
flat,  drained  Middlesex  plain,  with  its  single  standing 
pollarded  elms."  No  English  poet,  not  even  Words- 
worth, had  a  more  passionate  love  of  the  country  than 
Matthew  Arnold.  But,  unlike  Wordsworth,  he  was  an 
omnivorous  reader,  as  familiar  with  German  and 
French  as  with  Latin  and  Greek.  Writing  again  to 
his  mother  on  the  7th  of  May  in  this  same  year  1848, 
he  expresses  a  rather  crude  and  hasty  verdict  on 
Heine,  to  whom  he  afterwards  did  more  justice  both 
in  prose  and  verse.  "I  have  just  finished,"  he  tells 
Mrs.  Arnold,  "a  German  book  I  brought  with  me  here, 
a  mixture  of  poems  and  travelling  journal  by  Heinrich 
Heine,  the  most  famous  of  the  young  German  literary 
set.     He  has  a  good  deal  of  power,  though  more  trick ; 


III.]  EARLY   POEMS  19 

however,  he  has  thoroughly  disgusted  me.  The 
liyrouism  of  a  Geriuau,  of  a  man  trying  to  be  gloomy, 
cynical,  impassioned,  moqueur,  etc.,  all  d  Ja  fois,  with 
their  honest  bouhommistic  language  and  total  want  of 
experience  of  the  kind  that  Lord  Byron,  an  English 
peer  \N'ith  access  everywhere,  possessed,  is  the  most 
ridiculous  thing  in  the  world."  Happily,  Matthew 
Arnold  travelled  soon  and  far  from  the  state  of  mind 
in  which  he  could  regard  the  lieisehilder  as  "  the  most 
ridiculous  thing  in  the  world."  The  author  of  Heine's 
Grave  knew  that  to  speak  of  Heine  as  a  man  who 
tried  to  be  gloomy  was  the  reverse  of  the  truth. 
Heine's  model  was  not  Byron,  but  Sterne,  and  it  was 
beneath  ^Matthew  Arnold  to  bring  the  privileges  of 
the  peerage  into  literature.  But  there  never  was  a 
more  flagrant  example  than  Byron  in  contradiction  of 
the  proverb  XohJesse  oblige,  and  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  Dr.  Arnold  would  have  highly  disapproved  of  the 
Reisebilder. 

On  the  21st  of  July  1849  there  appeared  in  the 
Examiner  the  first  of  Matthew  Arnold's  sonnets.  It 
was  published  anonymously,  and  addressed  "  To  the 
Hungarian  Nation."  On  the  29th  of  July  he  told  his 
mother  that  it  Avas  "not  worth  much,"  and  from  this 
candid  opinion  I,  at  least,  am  not  prepared  to  dissent. 
Such  lines  as 

"  Not  in  American  vulLcarity, 
Nor  wordy  German  imbecility,'' 

would  almost  have  justified  a  repetition  of  the  proph- 
ecy which  Dryden  delivered  to  Swift.  And  yet,  be- 
fore the  year  was  over,  Mr.  Arnold  had  brought  out  a 
volume  which  ought  to  have  established  his  place  in 


20  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

English  poetry,  tliougli  for  some  unexplained  reason 
it  did  not.  The  ^'  Sonnet  to  the  Hungarian  Nation  " 
was  not  republished  in  the  lifetime  of  the  author.  It 
may  be  found  in  Alaric  at  Rome  and  Other  Poems, 
edited  by  Mr.  Richard  Garnett  in  1896. 

The  Strayed  Reveller  and  Other  Poems,  by  "  A.,"^ 
appeared  in  the  author's  twenty-seventh  year.  Few 
volumes  of  equal  merit  have  made  so  small  an  impres- 
sion upon  the  public.  Although  every  poem  in  it, 
except  one,  "  The  Hayswater  Boat,"  was  afterwards 
reprinted  with  Mr.  Arnold's  sanction,  and  now  forms 
a  permanent  part  of  English  literature,  scarcely  any 
notice  was  taken  of  it  at  the  time,  and  it  was  with- 
drawn from  circulation  when  only  a  few  copies  had 
been  sold.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  this  neglect. 
The  age  was  not  altogether  a  prosaic  one.  Words- 
worth was  still  alive,  and  still  Laureate,  although  it 
was  long  since  he  had  written  anything  that  wore 
the  semblance  of  inspiration.  Tennyson  was  already 
famous,  in  spite  of  envious  detraction  and  ignorant 
misunderstanding.  Browning,  though  not  yet  popular, 
was  ardently  admired  as  the  author  of  "  Paracelsus  " 
by  a  small  circle  of  the  best  judges.  Rogers  was 
enjoying  in  his  old  age  a  poetical  reputation  which, 
though  it  may  have  been  enhanced  by  his  social 
celebrity,  was  yet  thoroughly  deserved.  Matthew 
Arnold,  unlike  them  all,  was  as  true  a  poet  as  any  of 
them,  and  had  none  of  the  obscurity  which  made 
Browning  "  caviare  to  the  general."  So  far  as  the 
poem  which  gave  its  title  to  the  book  is  concerned,  the 
cold  i-eception  accorded  to  it  was  natural  enough. 
Rhyme  and  blank  verse  have  their  own  high  and 
recognised  positions.     We  may  agree  with  Milton  in 


III.]  EARLY  POEMS  21 

holding  that  rhyme  is  "no  necessary  adjunct"  of 
"poem  or  good  verse,"  while  yet  humbly  and  rever- 
ently dissenting  from  his  further  opinion  that  it  was 
"  the  invention  of  a  barbarous  age  to  set  off  wretched 
matter  and  lame  metre,"  which  indeed  the  noble  and 
beautiful  melody  of  "  Lycidas  "  and  "  Comus  "  and 
"  L'AUegro"  and  "  11  Penseroso"  sufficiently  refutes. 
But  except  for  a  few  hexameters,  such  as  some  of 
Kingsley's,  some  of  Longfellow's,  all  Dr.  Hawtrey's, 
and  a  few  of  Clough's,  there  is  hardly  room  in  English 
for  verse  which  is  neither  one  nor  the  other.  I  say 
"  hardly,"  remembering  Tennyson's  "  Gleam  "  and 
Browning's  "  One  Word  More."  But  I  do  not  think 
that  any  poem  of  IMatthew  Arnold's,  not  even  "  Eugby 
Chapel,"  could  be  included  in  the  same  category  as 
these.  Tlie  Strayed  Reveller  opens  Avell  with  the 
impassioned  address  of  the  youth  to  Circe  — 

"  Faster,  faster, 
0  Circe,  Goddess, 
Let  the  wild,  thronging  train, 
The  bright  procession 
Of  eddying  forms. 
Sweep  through  ray  soul." 

V)\\i  a  line  which  almost  immediately  follows  — 

"  Lean'd  Qp  Sgainst  th6  cSlumn  there," 

is  surely  cacophonous  to  the  last  degree.  The  idea 
of  the  poem  is  as  fascinating  as  it  is  fantastic.  The 
spells  of  Circe  have  wrought  no  hideous  transforma- 
tion here.  The  youth's  visions  are  the  visions  of  the 
gods,  and  the  appearance  of  Ulysses,  the  ''spare,  dark- 
featur'd,  quick-eyed  stranger,"  recalls  that  wonderful 
line,  which  sums  up  the  spirit  of  all  adventure  — 

"■kXuv  iirl  otyoKa  irbvrov,  iir'  dX\o^p6ous  a.vdp{S)irovs." 


22  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

But  poets,  from  the  least  to  tlie  greatest,  liave  to 
reckon  with  the  necessity  of  external  form. 

The  "  Fragment  of  an  '  Antigone '"  is  a  similar 
experiment,  and  not  in  my  opinion  more  successful. 
Such  lines  as 

"  August  laws  doth  mightily  vindicate," 
or 

"A  dead,  ignorant,  thankless  corpse," 

require  an  abnormal  ear  to  appreciate  their  harmony. 
Moreover,  this  piece  suffers  by  comparison  with  Mr. 
Browning's  stately  fragment  of  an  Hippolytus  called 
"Artemis  Prologises,"  and  with  Cardinal  Newman's 
verses,  beginning  "Man  is  permitted  many  things." 
They  have  beauty  of  form,  and  are  cast  in  national 
moulds,  for  one  is  blank  verse,  and  the  other  is  rhyme. 
But  these  are  spots  on  the  sun.  The  little  book,  so 
soon  suppressed,  contained  some  of  Mr.  Arnold's  best 
work,  and  should  have  received,  at  least  from  all 
scholars,  an  enthusiastic  welcome.  The  opening  son- 
net, suggested  by  Goethe's  famous  "  Ohne  Hast  ohne 
Rast,"  is  not  equal  to  the  later  ones  on  Homer,  Epic- 
tetus,  and  Sophocles,  which  may  perhaps  be  called 
his  best.  But  it  raises  at  once  the  question  where 
Matthew  Arnold's  sonnets  deserve  to  rank.  No  one, 
I  suppose,  would  class  them  with  Keats's  or  with 
Wordsworth's.  They  might  fairly  be  put  on  a  level 
with  Rossetti's,  and  above  Tennyson's,  for  Tennyson 
did  not  shine  in  the  very  difficult  art  of  sonnet-writ- 
ing. It  may  be  considered  a  proof  rather  of  Mr. 
Arnold's  courage  than  of  his  discretion  that  he  should 
have  written  a  sonnet  on  Shakespeare.  Shakespeare's 
own  sonnets  are  beacons,  and,  like  other  beacons,  they 


III.]  EARLY   POEMS  28 

are  warnings.  Of  iine  Avriting  on  Shakespeare  we 
have  enough,  and  more  than  enough. 

"Self-school'd,  self-scann'd,  self-honour'd,  self-secure," 

is  but  fine  writing  after  all.  The  sonnet  "  Written  in 
Emerson's  Essays''  is  thoughtful  and  interesting.  But 
the  last  line  is  open  to  an  obvious  criticism  — 

"  Dumb  judges,  answer,  truth  or  mockery  ?" 

"\Miat  is  the  use  of  asking  dumb  judges  to  answer  ? 
The  lines  "  To  an  Independent  Preacher,  who  preached 
that  we  should  be  in  Harmony  with  Nature,"  lack  the 
urbanity  which  Mr.  Arnold  always  preached,  and  usu- 
ally practised.  But  contact  with  Dissenters  seems  to 
have  upset  his  moral  equilibrium.  The  finest  of  these 
early  sonnets  is  the  first  of  the  three  addressed  "  To 
a  Republican  Friend."  The  friend  was,  I  presume, 
Clough,  to  whom  he  wrote  as  "  Citizen  Clough,  Oriel 
Lyceum,  Oxford,"  assuring  him,  as  Clough  tells  us, 
that  "the  Millennium  was  not  coming  this  boitt." 
Clough's  republicanism  was  skin-deep,  and  before  his 
premature  death  he  might  have  said,  with  Southey, 
that  he  was  no  more  ashamed  of  having  been  a  repub- 
lican than  of  having  been  young.  Many  Oxford 
Liberals,  Stanley  included,  were  enthusiastic  demo- 
crats in  1849,  when  France  seemed  to  be  showing  the 
way,  and  no  one  suspected  that  the  Second  Empire 
was  at  hand.  But  few,  indeed,  except  John  Duke 
Coleridge,  retained  their  eaily  faith  to  the  end  of 
tlieir  days.  Matthew  Arnold,  however,  was  from  the 
first  a  moderate  Liberal,  and  a  moderate  Liberal  he 
continued  to  the  last.  The  excellent  qualities  of 
judgment  and  sympathy  were  his,   but   of   political 


24  MATTHEW  AENOLD  [chap. 

entliusiasm  he  was  incapable.  This  beautiful  sonnet 
deserves  to  be  quoted  at  length,  not  only  for  its 
intrinsic  merits,  but  also  because  it  is  thoroughly- 
characteristic  of  his  thoughts  and  wishes  — 

"  God  knows  it,  I  am  with  you.    If  to  prize 
Those  virtues,  priz'd  and  practis'd  by  too  few, 
But  priz'd,  but  lov'd,  but  eminent  in  you, 
Man's  fundamental  life  :  if  to  despise 
The  barren  optimistic  sophistries 
Of  comfortable  moles,  whom  what  they  do 
Teaches  the  limit  of  the  just  and  true  — 
And  for  such  doing  have  no  need  of  eyes  : 
If  sadness  at  the  long  heart-wasting  show 
Wherein  earth's  great  ones  are  disquieted  : 
If  thoughts,  not  idle,  while  before  me  flow 
The  armies  of  the  homeless  and  unfed  :  — 
If  these  are  yours,  if  this  is  what  you  are, 
Then  am  I  yours,  and  what  you  feel,  I  share." 

This  is  not  equal  to  Wordsworth's  incomparable 
sonnet  on  Milton,  which  it  inevitably  suggests,  but 
they  are  very  noble  lines,  and  they  contain  the  essence 
of  Mr.  Arnold's  political  creed. 

Readers  must  have  been  blind,  indeed,  who  could 
not  see  the  beauty  of  "Mycerinus."  The  strange, 
weird,  tragic  story  of  this  Egyptian  king  is  familiar 
to  all  lovers  of  Herodotus.  In  that  exquisitely  simple 
and  pellucid  style  which  none  of  his  successors  have 
equalled  or  approached  the  unconsciously  great  his- 
torian tells  how  Mycerinus  forsook  the  evil  ways  of 
his  cruel  father,  and  governed  his  people  with  a  mild, 
paternal  rule.  The  father  lived  to  a  green  old  age, 
feared  and  hated  by  his  subjects.  Against  the  son  in 
the  prime  of  life  there  went  out  a  decree  from  the 


III.]  EARLY   POEMS  25 

oracles  of  God  that  after  six  years  he  must  die.  Vainly 
did  ^Myceriuus  protest  that,  shunning  bad  examples, 
he  had  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity.  The  stern 
answer  came  that  he  had  misread  the  sentence  of  fate, 
■which  had  determined  tliat  for  a  century  the  Egyp- 
tians should  be  oppressed.  The  father  was  Aviser  in 
his  generation  than  the  child  of  light.  Then  jMyceri- 
nus  felt  that  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth  was  more 
than  he  could  read ;  that  to  struggle  was  useless ;  and 
that  all  he  could  do  was  to  make  his  six  years  into 
twelve  by  devoting  every  moment  to  pleasure,  by 
turning  night  into  day.  But  first  he  summoned  the 
people,  and  told  them  the  whole  story.  He  described 
briefly  his  own  youth  — 

"Relf-frovern'd,  at  the  feet  of  Law; 
Ennobling  thi.s  dull  pomp,  the  life  of  kings, 
By  contemplation  of  diviner  things." 

He  took  them  into  his  confidence.  He  asked  them, 
as  if  they  could  tell  him,  wdiether  the  gods  were 
altogether  careless  of  men  and  men's  actions. 

"Or  is  it  that  some  Power,  too  wise,  too  strong, 
Even  for  yourselves  to  conquer  or  beguile, 
Whirls  earth,  and  heaven,  and  men,  and  gods  along, 
Like  the  broad  rushing  of  the  column'd  Nile  ? 
And  the  great  powers  we  serve,  themselves  may  be 
Slaves  of  a  tyrannous  Necessity  ?  " 

No  such  verse  had  been  written  in  English  since 
Wordsworth's  "Laodamia,"  and  the  poem  abounds  in 
single  lines  of  haimting  charm,  such  as  — 

"  Love,  free  to  range,  and  regal  banquetings," 
"  Sweep  in  the  sounding  stillness  of  the  night," 


26  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

which  has  an  echo  of  Theocritus,  with  perfect  couplets, 
as,  for  instance  — 

"  And  prayers,  and  gifts,  and  tears,  are  fruitless  all, 
And  the  night  waxes,  and  the  shadows  fall." 

Or,  in  the  concluding  portion  of  the  poem,  which  is 
blank  verse  — 

"  While  the  deep-burnish'd  foliage  overhead 
Splinter'd  the  silver  arrows  of  the  moon," 

where  the  Virgilian  note  will  strike  every  scholar. 
"  Stand  forth,  true  poet  that  you  are,"  should  have 
been  the  discerning  critic's  invitation  to  the  anony- 
mous author  of  "  Mycerinus."     But  it  was  not. 

The  contents  of  this  little  volume  varied  much  in 
merit,  as  in  other  respects.  *'  The  Sick  King  in  Bok- 
hara" is  almost  prosaic.  Mr.  Arnold,  who  hated 
Macaulay,  sneered  at  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  of 
which  his  father  was  so  fond,  and  selected  for  especial 
ridicule  the  lines  from  "Horatius"  — 

"  To  every  man  upon  this  earth 
Death  cometh,  soon  or  late." 

There  is  not  much  to  be  said  for  them,  I  admit.  But 
if  a  poet  is  to  be  judged  by  his  worst  things,  and  not 
by  his  best,  there  are  lines  from  "The  Sick  King  in 
Bokhara  "  which  may  be  set  beside  Macaulay's  — 

"Look,  this  is  but  one  single  place, 
Though  it  be  great :  all  the  earth  round, 
If  a  man  bear  to  have  it  so, 
Thinsrs  which  might  vex  him  shall  be  found." 


'o' 


If  this  is  poetry,  what  is  prose  ?  Although  I  may  be 
rash,  I  give  my  opinion  for  what  it  is  worth,  and  it 
is  that  neither  the  story  of  this  invalid  monarch  nor 


III.]  E.\RLY  POEMS  27 

;Mr.  Arnold's  treatment  of  it  made  the  poem  meet  for 
republication,  or  for  an3'thing  but  repentance. 

*'A  Modern  Sappho,"  in  the  style  of  ^loore's  Irish 
Melodies,  is  chiefly  memorable  for  the  fine  couplet  — 

"But  deeper  their  voice  grows,  and  nobler  their  bearing, 
"Whose  youth  in  the  fires  of  anguish  hath  died." 

"The  New  Sirens"  is  an  especial  favourite  with  Mr. 
Swinburne,  and  was  republished  a  quarter  of  a  century 
afterwards  at  his  request.  Xo  poet  has  been  more 
generously  appreciative  of  his  contemporaries,  whether 
older  or  younger  than  himself,  than  ^h\  Swinburne ; 
and  in  this  case,  at  all  events,  his  insight  was  sure. 
"The  Xew  Sirens"  is  not  unlike  INFrs.  Browning's 
"  Wine  of  Cyprus,"  but  it  is  less  unequal,  more  mu- 
sical, more  chastened  and  subdued.  The  poem  "  To  a 
Gipsy  Child  by  the  Seashore  "  contains  one  most  beau- 
tiful quatrain  — 

"Ah  !  not  the  nectarous  poppy  lovers  use, 
Not  daily  labour's  dull,  LethiBan  spring. 
Oblivion  in  lost  angels  can  infuse 
Of  the  soil'd  glory,  and  the  trailing  wing." 

A  critic  of  the  Johnsonian  school,  however,  might 
observe  that  it  is  the  uusoiled  glory  and  the  soaring 
wing  which  the  lost  angels  would  remember.  Remem- 
brance is  of  the  past,  not  the  present.  In  its  delicate 
loveliness  "  The  Forsaken  Merman"  ranks  high  among 
Mr.  Arnold's  poems.  It  is  a  story  of  a  Sea-king, 
married  to  a  mortal  maiden,  who  forsook  him  and 
her  children  under  the  impulse  of  a  Christian  convic- 
tion that  she  must  return  and  pray  for  her  soul.  Her 
name   wa.s    Mr.   AnioM's  favourite   name,    Margaret. 


28  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

The  Merman  saw  her  through  the  window  as  she  sat 
in  church  with  her  eyes  on  "  the  holy  book."  But  she 
came  back  to  him  no  more.  "  Alone  dwell  for  ever 
the  kings  of  the  sea."  "  Alone  the  sun  rises,  and  alone 
Spring  the  great  streams,"  says  Mr.  Arnold  in  another 
poem. 

Perhaps  the  most  exquisite,  and  certainly  the  most 
characteristic,  poem  in  the  volume  is  "  Resignation." 
One  cannot  doubt  that  into  these  lines  of  chiselled 
and  classic  perfection  Matthew  Arnold  put  his  mind 
and  soul.  Everything  in  the  book  was  republished, 
except  "  The  Hayswater  Boat,"  which  hardly  deserved 
exclusion.  But  "  Resignation  "  is  part  of  Mr.  Arnold's 
life  and  character.  We  cannot  think  of  him  without 
it.  At  the  very  beginning  we  read  of  "the  Goth,  bound 
Rome-wards,"  and  we  remember  Alaric.  The  "  mist- 
wreath'd  flock  "  and  the  "  wet  flower'd  grass "  recall 
the  Sicilian  poet  he  loved  so  well.  But  Theocritus  is 
not  the  poet  described  here  — 

"  Lean'd  on  his  gate,  he  gazes  :  tears 
Are  in  his  eyes,  and  in  his  ears 
The  murmur  of  a  thousand  years ; 
Before  him  he  sees  Life  unroll, 
A  placid  and  continuous  whole  ; 
That  general  Life,  which  does  not  cease, 
Whose  secret  is  not  joy,  but  peace  ; 
That  Life,  whose  dumb  wish  is  not  miss'd 
If  birth  proceeds,  if  things  subsist  ; 
The  Life  of  plants,  and  stones,  and  rain  ; 
The  Life  he  craves  ;  if  not  in  vain 
Fate  gave,  what  Chance  shall  not  control, 
His  sad  lucidity  of  soul." 

If  Mr.  Arnold  was,  as  he  must  have  been,  sometimes 
sad,  he  never  allowed  the  shadow  of  his  gloom  to  rest 


III.]  EARLY   POEMS  29 

upon  others.  Peace  of  mind  and  lucidity  of  soul  he 
acquired,  if  he  did  not  always  possess  them.  Prob- 
ably they  were  congenital,  like  the  healthier  and 
sounder  parts  of  his  father's  Puritanism.  A  fastidious 
critic,  TenuA'son  for  instance,  might  have  objected  to 
the  juxtaposition  of  "■  gate  "  and  "  gazes,"  or  of  "  wish  " 
and  "miss'd."'  But  apart  from  small  blemishes  of  this 
kind,  the  lines  are  as  symmetrical  in  form  as  they 
are  full  of  calm  and  yet  intense  feeling.  They  sum 
up  ^Iv.  Arnold's  imaginative  philosophy.  They  are 
the  man.  Equal  to  them,  perhaps  in  expression  beyond 
them,  are  those  which  almost  immediately  follow:  — 

''Deeply  the  Poet  feels  ;  but  he 
Breathes,  when  he  will,  immortal  air, 
"Where  Orpheus  and  where  Homer  are. 
In  the  day's  life,  whose  iron  round 
Ilenis  us  all  in,  he  is  not  bound. 
lie  escapes  thence,  but  we  abide. 
Not  deep  the  Poet  sees,  but  wide." 

Shakespeare  was  not  the  only  poet  who  saw  deep  as 
well  as  wide.  It  would  be  hard  to  fathom  the  thought 
of  WordsAvorth  in  his  sublimest  moments,  and  Orpheus 
was  a  mystic,  if  Homer  was  not.  Sophocles  was 
perhaps  in  Mr.  Arnold's  mind  —  ''singer  of  sweet 
Colonos,  and  its  child."  He  never  surpassed  the  best 
things  in  "  Resignation,"  and  for  life's  fitful  fever  the 
English  language,  rich  as  it  is  in  all  manner  of  refresh- 
ing influences,  contains  no  more  healing  balm. 


CHAPTER   IV 

WORK   AND    POETRY 

On  the  14th  of  April  1851,  Matthew  Arnold  was 
appointed  by  Lord  Lansdowne  to  an  Inspectorship  of 
Schools,  which  he  retained  for  five-and-thirty  years. 
His  friend,  Mr.  Ralph  Lingen,  afterwards  Lord  Lingen, 
who  had  been  his  tutor  at  Oxford,  was  influential 
in  procuring  him  this  post,  though  it  came  to  him 
naturally  enough,  being  in  the  gift  of  his  official  chief. 
Mr.  Lingen  was  Secretary  to  the  Education  Depart- 
ment, then  in  its  infancy,  and  he  wished  to  attract 
young  men  of  promise  from  the  Universities.  He 
never  made  a  better  choice  than  Matthew  Arnold. 
It  is  no  disparagement  of  the  many  able  men  Avho 
have  been  Inspectors  of  Schools  to  say  that  not  one 
of  them  excelled  Mr.  Arnold  in  fitness  for  the  post. 
He  was  very  fond  of  children,  he  knew  by  instinct 
how  to  deal  with  them,  and  at  the  other  end  of  the 
scale  he  had  a  real  scientific  knowledge  of  what  educa- 
tion in  its  highest  sense  ought  to  be.  With  lofty  ideas 
of  that  kind,  however,  he  had  for  some  years  little 
enough  to  do.  Compulsory  education  was  still  the 
dream  of  advanced  theorists.  The  parliamentary 
grants  were  only  five  years  old,  and  a  school  which 
chose,  like  Archdeacon  Denison's,  to  dispense  with  a 
grant,  could  dispense  with  inspection  too.     But  the 

30 


CHAP.  IT.]  WORK   AND   POETRY  31 

bribe  was  pretty  high,  few  national  schools  could 
afford  to  despise  it,  and  ^Mr.  Arnold  had  plenty  to  do. 
Throughout  his  life,  indeed,  he  worked  hard  for  a 
moderate  salary,  never  complaining,  always  promoting 
the  happiness  of  others,  and  throwing  into  his  daily 
duties  every  power  of  his  mind.  In  one  of  his  early 
letters  to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Forster,  Mr.  Arnold  naively 
observes  that  he  is  much  more  worldly  than  the  rest 
of  his  family.  He  was  fond  of  society,  and  a  delightful 
member  of  it.  Worldly  in  any  other  sense  he  was  not. 
Few  men  have  had  less  ambition,  or  a  stronger  sense 
of  duty.  On  the  10th  of  June,  in  this  same  year,  he 
married  the  lady  who  for  the  rest  of  his  life  was  the  chief 
source  of  his  happiness.  Her  name  was  Frances  Lucy 
"Wightman,  and  her  father  was  an  excellent  Judge  of  a 
good  old  school,  much  respected  in  Court,  little  known 
outside.  ;Mr.  Arnold,  though  neither  a  lawyer  nor  inter- 
ested in  law,  accompanied  Mr.  Justice  Wightman  on 
circuit  for  many  Assizes  as  Marshal.  Characteristic- 
ally avoiding  the  criminal  side,  he  liked  to  watch  his 
father-in-law  try  causes.  "  He  does  it  so  admirably," 
he  tells  his  wife.     "It"  is  said  to  be  a  lost  art. 

One  of  his  first  letters  to  Mrs.  Arnold,  dated  from 
the  Oldham  Road  Lancastrian  School  at  IManchester, 
on  the  15th  of  October  1851,  shows  the  spirit  with 
which  he  entered  upon  his  regular  functions.  "  I  think 
I  shall  get  interested  in  the  schools  after  a  little  time," 
he  writes ;  "their  effects  on  the  children  are  so  immense, 
and  their  future  effects  in  civilising  the  next  genera- 
tion of  the  lower  classes,  wlio,  as  things  are  going,  will 
have  most  of  the  political  power  of  the  country  in  their 
hands,  may  be  so  important."  But  meanwhile  he  gave 
the  public  another  volume  of  poems. 


32  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

In  October  1852  appeared  Emjyedodes  on  Etna,  and 
Other  Poems,  by  "A."  Although  this  volume,  with  its 
predecessor,  contains  most  of  Mr.  Arnold's  best  verse, 
and  although  he  never  afterwards  wrote  anything 
except  "  Thyrsis  "  and  "  Westminster  Abbey,"  which 
added  much  to  his  poetical  reputation,  the  one  book 
fell  as  flat  as  the  other,  and  was  withdrawn  before  fifty 
copies  had  been  sold.  A  greater  reproach  to  the  criti- 
cism of  the  early  Victorian  age  there  could  hardly  be. 
Tennyson  had  succeeded  Wordsworth  as  Poet  Laureate, 
but  he  had  not  yet  become  really  popular,  and  Brown- 
ing was  still  only  the  idol  of  a  clique.  The  one  man 
in  England  fit  to  be  compared  with  either  Browning 
or  Tennyson  gave  the  public  of  his  best,  and  the  public 
neither  praised  nor  blamed.  They  took  no  notice  at 
all.  The  earliest  of  these  most  varied  and  interesting 
poems  in  point  of  time  is  the  "  Memorial  Verses  "  on 
the  death  of  Wordsworth,  which  happened  in  April 
1850.     The  opening  lines  are  familiar  — 

"  Goethe  in  Weimar  sleeps,  and  Greece, 
Long  since,  saw  Byron's  struggle  cease. 
But  one  such  death  remain'd  to  come. 
The  last  poetic  verse  is  dumb. 
What  shall  be  said  o'er  Wordsworth's  tomb  ?  " 

To  Tennyson,  Matthew  Arnold  was  always  unjust, 
and  never  appreciated  his  greatness.  Whether  "  tomb  " 
rhymes  with  "  dumb  "  I  shall  not  assume  the  province 
of  determining.  Mr.  Arnold  had  not  a  faultless  ear. 
Indeed,  some  of  his  unrhymed  lyrics  lead  one  to  ask 
whether  he  had  any  ear  at  all,  and  for  richness  of 
melody  he  cannot  be  mentioned  with  Mr.  Swinburne. 
Goethe   and   Wordsworth   can    hardly   be   compared. 


IT.]  WORK  AND  POETRY  33 

except  for  purposes  of  contrast.  Wordsworth,  as  is 
well  known,  objected  to  Goethe's  poetry  that  it  was 
"  not  inevitable  enough,"  thereby  introducing  a  word 
which  has  since  been  done  to  death  in  the  service  of 
the  lower  criticism.  But  Mr.  Arnold's  classic  eulogy 
of  Goethe  is  fine  in  itself,  being  indeed  little  more  than 
a  paraphrase  of  the  great  Virgilian  hexameters  — 

"  Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
Atque  metiis  omnes,  et  inexorabile  fatum, 
Subjecit  pedibus,  strepituiuque  Acherontis  Averui." 

"When  we  read  — 

"  Time  may  restore  us  in  his  course 
Goethe's  sage  mind  and  Byron's  force; 
But  where  will  Europe's  latter  hour 
Again  find  Wordsworth's  healing  power?  " 

we  are  tempted  to  ask  why  another  Wordsworth  is 
less  possible,  if  there  can  be  degrees  of  possibility, 
than  another  Goethe  ?  And  indeed  much  of  the  heal- 
ing power  may  be  found  in  the  best  verse  of  Mr. 
Arnold  himself. 

Empedodes  on  Etna  was  a  special  favourite  with 
Robert  Bro^raiug,  at  whose  request  it  reappeared  in 
1867.  It  was  then  new  as  a  whole  to  the  general 
public,  for  in  1852  its  author  almost  immediately  with- 
drew it,  and  only  fragments  of  it  were  reprinted  in 
1855.  That  Browning  should  admire  it  was  not 
wonderful,  for  both  the  subject  and  the  treatment  are 
suggestive  of  "  Paracelsus,"  though  "  Paracelsus"  is  to 
my  thinking  a  far  finer  poem.  Empedocles  was  a 
Sicilian  Greek  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  whose 
philosophical  remains,  such  as  they  are,  show  him  to 
have  been   a  dreamy,   mystical  sceptic.     The  legend 


34  MATTHEW  AENOLD  [chap. 

that  in  despair  of  attaining  truth,  he  flung  himself 
into  the  crater  of  Etna,  is  a  mere  tradition  without 
historic  value.  The  blank  verse  of  Empedocles  is  not 
equal  to  Mr.  Arnold's  best.     Such  a  line  as  — 

"  I  hear,  Gorgias,  their  chief,  speaks  nobly  of  him," 

can  neither  be  defended  nor  scanned.     On  the  other 

hand  — 

"  The  Adriatic  breaks  in  a  warm  bay," 

is  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind.  The  unrhymed  lyrics  are, 
to  speak  plainly,  both  here  and  throughout  this  volume, 

detestable  — 

"  Great  qualities  are  trodden  down, 
And  littleness  united 
Is  become  invincible." 

This  is  not  poetry.  It  is  scarcely  even  prose.  It  is 
something  for  which  literature  has  no  name.  The 
song  of  Empedocles  to  his  harp,  though  far  below 
"  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  contains  some  striking  verses,  as. 
for  instance  — 

"  We  would  have  inward  peace. 
Yet  will  not  look  within  : 
We  would  have  misery  cease. 
Yet  will  not  cease  from  sin," 

where  the  curiously  Christian  tone  of  Greek  moral 
philosophy  is  well  brought  out.  But  the  best  parts  of 
the  drama,  if  drama  it  is  to  be  called,  are  the  songs  of 
Callicles.  There  is  one  passage  clearly  written  under 
the  influence  of  Gray,  with  whom  Mr.  Arnold  has  some- 
times, not  perhaps  to  much  purpose,  been  compared — 

"  And  the  Eagle,  at  the  beck 
Of  the  appeasing  gracious  harmony, 


rv.]  WORK  AND  POETRY  36 

Droops  all  his  sheeny,  brown,  deep-feather'd  ueck, 

Nestling  nearer  to  Jove's  feet : 

While  o'er  his  sovereign  eye 

The  curtains  of  the  blue  films  slowly  meet." 

One  instinctively  recalls  the  beautiful  couplet  in  the 
"  Trogress  of  Poesy  '' — 

"  Quenched  in  dark  clouds  of  slumber  lie 
The  terrors  of  his  beak,  and  lightnings  of  his  eye." 

The  best  consecutive  passage  of  blank  verse  in  the 
poem  is  undoubtedly  the  following  — 

"  And  yet  what  days  were  those,  Parmonides  ! 
When  we  were  young,  when  we  could  number  friends 
In  all  the  Italian  cities  like  ourselves, 
When  with  elated  hearts  we  join'd  your  train. 
Ye  Sun-born  virgins  !  on  the  road  of  Truth. 
Then  we  could  still  enjoy,  then  neither  thought 
Nor  outward  things  were  clos'd  and  dead  to  us, 
But  we  received  the  shock  of  mighty  thoughts 
On  simple  minds  with  a  pure  natural  joy. 
And  if  the  sacred  load  oppress'd  our  brain. 
We  had  the  power  to  feel  the  pressure  eas'd. 
The  brow  unbound,  the  thought  flow  free  again, 
In  the  delightful  commerce  of  the  world." 

This  is  truly  "Wordsworthian,  though  Wordsworth 
would  hardly  have  ended  two  lines  out  of  three  with 
the  same  substantive.  But  the  song  of  Callicles  at 
the  end  is  the  gem  of  the  piece.  The  stanzas  are 
familiar  — 

"  Not  here,  O  Apollo  ! 
Are  haunts  meet  for  thee. 
But,  where  Helicon  breaks  down 
In  cliff  to  the  sea." 


36  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap.  ! 

Here  the  third  line  halts  badly.  This,  however,  is 
almost  perfect  — 

"  'Tis  Apollo  comes  leading  j 

His  choii',  The  Nine.  i 

—  The  Leader  is  fairest,  I 
But  all  are  divine." 

These,  too,   are  lovely,   though   perhaps    the    word  I 

"hotness"  is  exceptionable  — 

"  First  hymn  they  the  Father  i 

Of  all  things  :  and  then  j 

The  rest  of  Immortals,  i 
The  action  of  men. 

The  Day  in  its  hotness, 
The  strife  with  the  palm ; 
The  Night  in  its  silence, 
The  Stars  in  their  calm." 

The  question  why  the  second  of  these  two  stanzas  is 
inferior  to  the  first  lies  at  the  root  of  poetry,  and 
involves  the  true  value  of  poetic  style. 

The  other  long  poem  in  this  volume,  "  Tristram  and 
Iseult,"  contains  some  of  Mr.  Arnold's  best  lyrics, 
especially  the  noble  stanza  beginning  — 

"  Raise  the  light,  my  page,  that  I  may  see  her  — 
Thou  art  come  at  last  then,  haughty  Queen  ! 
Long  I've  waited,  long  I've  fought  my  fever: 
Late  thou  comest,  cruel  thou  hast  been." 

And  the  haunting  couplet  — 

"  What  voices  are  these  on  the  clear  night  air  ? 
What  lights  in  the  court  ?  what  steps  on  the  stair  ?  " 

The  story  of  Tristram  and  the  two  Iseults — the  Iseult 
he  loved  and  the  Iseult  he  married — has  been  also 


IV.]  WORK  AND  POETRY  37 

versified  by  Mr.  Swinburne,  who  treats  it  with  less 
restraint.  In  Mr.  Arnold's  hands  it  is  not  so  much 
interesting  or  complete  in  itself  as  the  opportunity  for 
stringing  together  some  beauties  of  melody  and  niceties 
of  phrase.     Such  lines  as  — 

•'  Above  the  din  her  voice  is  in  my  ears  — 
I  see  lior  form  glide  through  the  crosaiiig  spears," 

can  never  be  forgotten. 

Memorable  also  is  the  blank  verse  — 

"  She  seems  one  dying  in  a  mask  of  youth." 

But  it  may  be  safely  said  of  this  poem  that  no  one  has 
ever  read  it,  or  ever  will  read  it  for  the  story,  which 
indeed  is  rather  suggested  than  told.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  in  the  first  edition  of  "  Tristram  and  Iseult " 
the  place  of  King  Marc's  court  was  made  a  dactyl.  It 
runs  — 

"  Where  the  prince  whom  she  must  wed 
Keeps  his  court  in  Tj'ntilgel." 

It  is,  of  course,  Tyntagel,  and  in  later  editions  the 
second  line  became  — 

"  Dwells  on  proud  Tyntagel's  hill." 

In  eveiy  other  line  Avhere  the  name  occurs  a  similar 
change  was  made. 

Among  the  miscellaneous  poems  published  with 
"  Empedocles,"  "  On  the  Rhine  "  is  chiefly  remarkable 
for  the  pretty  lines  — 

"  Eyes  too  expressive  to  be  blue, 
Too  lovely  to  be  grey." 

But  "  Parting  "  Indongs  to  a  much  higher  class.  It 
is  passionate,  as  Mr.  Arnold's  poetry  so  seldom  is,  and 


38  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

it  is  wholly  beautiful,  with  a  rush  and  swing  unusual 
in  the  apostle  of  philosophic  calm,  who  desired,  like 
the  poor  <'  Independent  Preacher,"  to  be  at  one  with 
nature  — 

"  But  on  the  stairs  what  voice  is  this  I  hear, 
Buoyant  as  morning,  and  as  morning  clear  ? 
Say,  has  some  wet  bird-haunted  English  lawn 
Lent  it  the  music  of  its  trees  at  dawn  ? 
Or  was  it  from  some  sun-fieck'd  mountain-brook 
That  the  sweet  voice  its  upland  clearness  took  ?  " 

This    is    exquisite    melody,   and    the   antistrophe, 
beginning  — 

"  But  who  is  this,  by  the  half-open'd  door  ?  " 

is  quite  as  good.  The  poem  belongs  to  a  collection 
afterwards  called  "  Switzerland,"  of  whom  a  lady  called 
Marguerite  is  the  subject.  She  can  hardly  have 
been  a  creature  of  the  imagination,  but  there  is  no 
trace  of  her  identity.  Another  of  the  series,  called 
"  Absence,"  is  familiar  for  the  pathetic  verses  — 

"  But  each  day  brings  its  petty  dust 
Our  soon-chok'd  souls  to  fill. 
And  we  forget  because  we  must 
And  not  because  we  will." 

The  lines  especially  addressed  to  Marguerite  end 
with  five  words  — 

"  The  unplumb'd,  salt,  estranging  sea," 

which  can  hardly  be  surpassed  for  curious  felicity  in 
the  English,  if  in  any  language.  "  Self-Dependence  " 
is  a  characteristic  exhortation  to  seek  refuge  from 
human  troubles  in  the  example  of  nature.  We  are 
invited  to  contemplate  the  stars  and  the  sea  — 


IV.]  WORK  AND  POETRY  SO 

"  Unaffrighted  by  the  silence  round  them, 
Undistractod  by  the  sights  they  see, 
These  demand  not  that  the  things  without  them 
Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy." 

The  verses  are  pretty.  But,  as  Gibbon  said  of 
Sulpicius'  letter  to  Cicero,  such  consolations  never 
dried  a  single  tear.  "  The  Buried  Life  "  is  so  perfect, 
so  finished,  and  so  self-contained,  that  it  would  only 
be  spoiled  by  quotation.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  variation  of 
the  old  theme  so  finely  expressed  by  Seneca  — 

"  Illi  mors  gravis  incubat 
Qui,  notus  nimis  omnibus, 
Iguotus  moritur  sibi." 

"  A  Farewell,-'  on  the  other  hand,  which  belongs  to 
the  Marguerite  series,  is  much  less  equal,  but  two  of 
its  stanzas  are  conspicuously  excellent  — 

"  And  though  we  wear  out  life,  alas  ! 
Distracted  as  a  homeless  wind. 
In  beating  where  we  must  not  puss, 
In  seeking  what  we  shall  not  tind  ; 

"Yet  we  shall  one  day  gain,  life  past. 
Clear  prospect  o'er  our  being's  whole  ; 
Shall  see  ourselves,  and  learn  at  last 
Our  true  aflSnilies  of  soul." 

The  "Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the  Author  of  Obermann" 
are  as  much  about  Goethe  as  about  Senancour;  and 
Goethe,  though  the  prophet  of  Matthew  Arnold  as 
well  as  of  Carlyle,  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century 
rather  than  the  nineteenth.  The  unihymed  lyric 
called  ''Consolation"  is,  I  confess,  beyond  me  — 

♦'  And  countless  beings 
Vans  countless  mooda," 


40  MATTHEW  AENOLD  [chap. 

may  be  poetry,  but  it  is  poetry  which  I  cannot  dis- 
tinguish from  prose;  and  when  "two  young,  fair 
lovers  "  cry,  "  Destiny  prolong  the  present !  Time  ! 
stand  still  here !  "  I  can  only  think  of  the  immortal 
prayer  — 

"Ye  gods,  annihilate  both  space  and  time 
And  make  two  lovers  happy." 

It  is  strange  indeed  to  turn  from  these  craggy  and 
spasmodic  utterances  to  the  lovely  "  Lines  written  in 
Kensington  Gardens  "  — 

"  Calm  Soul  of  all  things  !  make  it  mine 
To  feel,  amid  the  city's  jar, 
That  there  abides  a  peace  of  thine, 
Man  did  not  make,  and  cannot  mar." 

Not  Lucan,  not  Virgil,  only  Wordsworth,  has  more 
beautifully  expressed  the  spirit  of  Pantheism. 

"The  Youth  of  Nature"  and  "The  Youth  of  Man" 
are  again  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.  "  The  Youth 
of  Nature  "  is  not  otherwise  remarkable  than  as  it  ex- 
aggerates the  Conservatism  of  Wordsworth,  who  was 
very  much  of  a  Kadical  in  his  early  days,  as  the 
•'  Prelude,"  not  published  in  his  lifetime,  shows. 
*'  The  Youth  of  Man "  contains  the  line  — 

"  Perfumes  the  evening  air," 

which  those  may  scan  who  have  the  power,  and  those 
may  like  who  scan.  Written  as  prose,  "And  they 
remember  with  piercing  untold  anguish  the  proud  boast- 
ing of  their  youth,"  is  well  enough.  But  metrically 
arranged,  it  belongs  to  no  metre  under  Heaven.  "  And 
the  mists  of  delusion,  and  the  scales  of  habit,  fall  away 
from  their  eyes,"  is  irreproachable  prose,  but  impossible 


IV.]  WORK   AND   rOETRY  41 

poetry,     'Ororality/'  which  follows,  is  a  most  refresh- 
ing contrast,  and  begins  at  once  with  a  fine  stanza  — 

"  We  cannot  kindle  when  we  will 
The  fire  that  in  the  heart  resides ; 
The  spirit  blowoth  and  is  still, 
In  mystery  our  soul  abides  : 

But  tasks  in  houi-s  of  insight  will'd 
Can  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fulfill'd." 

This  manly  and  dignfied  tone,  so  characteristic  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  is  the  sonrce  of  much  of  his  influ- 
ence. "  Progress,"  an  eloquent  expression  of  his  belief 
in  purely  spiritual  religion,  apart  from  all  creeds  and 
dogmas,  was  much  altered  in  later  editions.  Some  of 
the  changes  are  certainly  improvements.  One,  I 
think,  can  hardly  be  so  considered.  In  the  first 
edition  we  read  — 

"Quench  then  the  altar  fires  of  your  old  Gods  ! 
Quench  not  the  fire  within  !  " 

This  became  — 

"  Leave  then  the  Cross  as  ye  have  left  carved  gods, 
But  guard  the  fire  within  !  " 

Here  the  antithesis  disappears,  and  so  the  expres- 
sion becomes  weaker.  The  tribute  to  all  religions, 
Christian  and  other,  is  a  very  fine  one  — 

"  Which  has  not  taught  weak  wills  how  much  they  can, 
Which  has  not  fall'n  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain  ? 
Which  has  not  cried  to  sunk,  self-weary  man, 
'Thou  must  be  born  again  '  ?  " 

The  volume   ended  with   an   unrhymed   piece  called 
"The  Future,"  beginning  with  the  line  — 

"A  wanderer  j-i  man  from  liis  liirlli," 


42  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [ciiap. 

which  to  my  ear  has  two  superfluous  syllables,  and 
ending  with  the  really  beautiful  verse  — 

"  Murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  Sea." 

But  it  is  not  by  these  metrical  or  unmetrical  experi- 
ments that  Matthew  Arnold  lives. 

Empedocles  on  Etna,  and  Other  Poems,  by  *'A.," 
was  withdrawn  immediately  after  publication.  It 
was  soon,  however,  followed,  in  1853,  by  a  new 
volume  of  poems,  with  the  author's  name  on  the  title- 
page,  and  containing  many  pieces  already  published, 
besides  nine  which  were  new.  "Empedocles"  itself 
did  not  reappear,  for  reasons  stated  in  the  Preface. 
This  essay  expresses  for  the  first  time  Mr.  Arnold's 
conception  of  poetry,  and  must  be  regarded  as  an 
epoch  in  his  life.  After  declaring  that  he  had  not 
withdrawn  "  Empedocles  "  because  the  subject  was  too 
remote  from  the  present  time,  for  that  he  held  to  be 
an  invalid  objection,  he  thus  proceeds : — 

"  What  then  are  the  situations,  from  the  representa- 
tion of  which,  though  accurate,  no  poetical  enjoyment 
can  be  derived  ?  They  are  those  in  which  the  suffering 
finds  no  vent  in  action;  in  which  a  continuous  state 
of  mental  distress  is  prolonged,  unrelieved  by  incident, 
hope,  or  resistance  ;  in  which  there  is  everything  to  be 
endured,  nothing  to  be  done.  In  such  situations 
there  is  inevitably  something  morbid,  in  the  description 
of  them  something  monotonous.  When  they  occur 
in  actual  life,  they  are  painful,  not  tragic ;  the  repre- 
sentation of  them  in  poetry  is  painful  also. 

"  To  this  class  of  situations,  poetically  faulty  as  it 
appears  to  me,  that  of  Empedocles,  as  I  have  en- 
deavoured  to  represent   him,  belongs;    and   I    have 


V 


IV.]  WORK  AND  POETRY  43 

therefore  excluded  the  Foeni  from  the  present  collec- 
tion." 

This  important  Preface  was  Mr.  Arnold's  earliest 
publication  in  prose.  It  is  written  in  his  best  and 
purest  style,  free  from  the  mannerisms  and  affectations 
which  did  so  much  in  later  days  to  sjioil  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  readers.  But  unless  Mr.  Arnold  intended 
to  suggest  that  Empedocles  fell  into  the  crater  by 
accident,  which  is  hardly  conceivable,  the  theory  does 
not  quite  fit  the  facts.  Suicide  is  as  much  action  as 
murder,  and  is  as  capable  of  dramatic  treatment.  The 
thinness  of  the  boundary  between  the  sublime  and 
something  quite  different  is  a  topic  more  relevant  to 
oluntary  cremation,  following  a  lengthy  philosophic 
song  upon  a  harp.  When  'Mv.  Arnold  goes  on  to  ask 
and  to  answer  the  question  what  are  the  eternal  objects 
of  poetry,  he  is  at  his  best :  — 

"  The  Poet,  then,  has  in  the  first  place  to  select  an 
excellent  action;  and  what  actions  are  the  most  excel- 
lent? Those,  certainly,  which  most  powerfully  appeal 
to  the  great  primary  human  affections:  to  those  elemen- 
tary feelings  which  subsist  permanently  in  the  race, 
and  which  are  independent  of  time." 

That  is  full  of  instruction,  for  ever  inemorable,  and 
profoundly  true.  If  ]\Ir.  Browning  had  borne  it  in 
mind,  all  his  poetry  would  be,  as  his  best  poetry  is,  a 
permanent  addition  to  the  imaginative  literature  of 
the  world.  In  these  pages,  thoroughly  characteristic  of 
the  writer,  appears  one  phrase  which  became  familiar 
within  a  few  years  to  all  ]Mr.  Arnold's  readers.  The 
Greeks,  he  says,  are  "  the  unapproached  masters  of  the 
yrcmd  xti/le."  I'rofessor  Saintsbury  comi)lains  that  he 
never  defined  what  he  meant  by  the  grand  style.     But 


44  MATTHEW   AENOLD  [chap. 

was  it  necessary  ?  The  words  are  clear  enough,  and 
certainly  intelligible  to  all  classical  scholars.  The 
Greeks,  says  Mr.  Arnold,  kept  style  in  the  right 
degree  of  prominence.  They  suited,  as  Hamlet  puts 
it ,  the  word  to  the  action,  the  action  to  the  word.  I 
am  not,  however,  sure  that  he  exhausts  the  matter 
when  he  adds  that  their  range  of  subjects  was  so  lim- 
ited, because  so  few  subjects  are  excellent.  Another 
reason  was  that  a  story  for  dramatic  representation 
before  the  Athenian  people  must  be  one  which  the 
Athenian  people  knew.  They  would  have  resented  as 
a  dangerous  innovation  a  mere  fancy  of  the  dramatist's. 
But  it  must  not  be  too  recent,  and  touch  too  tender 
a  place,  as  Phrynichus  discovered  to  his  cost  when  he 
was  fined  for  his  tragedy  on  the  taking  of  Miletus. 
Most  interesting  is  the  passage  in  which  Mr.  Arnold 
traces  the  influence  upon  modern  English  poetry  of 
Shakespeare's  inexhaustible  eloquence.  This,  he  thinks, 
encouraged  those  who  came  after  Shakespeare,  and 
regarded  him  as  the  greatest  of  all  models,  to  think 
too  much  of  expression  and  too  little  of  composition. 
As  the  chief  example  of  this  error  he  takes  Keats, 
and  especially  "  Isabella."  He  does  not  depreciate 
Keats,  or  even  "  Isabella."  On  the  contrary,  he  says 
that  "  this  one  short  poem  contains,  perhaps,  a  greater 
number  of  happy  single  expressions  which  one  could 
qixote  than  all  the  extant  tragedies  of  Sophocles," 
which  seems  to  me  a  preposterous  overstatement.  But 
he  accuses  him  of  subordinating  the  essential  to  the 
accidental.  That  is  too  large  a  conclusion  to  deduce 
from  a  single  poem.  It  would  not  be  borne  out  by 
the  Sonnets,  by  the  Odes,  or  by  Hyperion,  As  for 
Shakespeare  himself,  it  is  mere    idolatry  to  pretend 


IV.]  WORK   AND   rOETKY  46 

that  all  he  wrote  was  equally  good.  There  is  much 
bombast  in  his  early  work,  aud  over-expressiou  was 
always  his  besettiug  sin.  It  seems  a  fault  in  him, 
because  he  was  so  great.  But  his  inferior  contem- 
poraries had  it  in  a  much  greater  degree.  It  was  the 
vice  of  the  age  rather  than  of  the  man.  He  had  at 
his  best  *'  the  severe  and  scrupulous  self-restraint  of 
the  ancients,"  which  Xr.  Arnold  denies  him.  But  he 
had  it  not  always,  as  they  had,  and  it  is  true,  there- 
fore, that  he  is  a  "  less  safe  model."  "  I  know  not 
how  it  is,"  says  Mr.  Arnold,  with  insight  and  felicity 
—  '•  I  know  not  how  it  is,  but  their  commerce  with  the 
ancients  appears  to  me  to  produce,  in  those  who  con- 
stantly practise  it,  a  steadying  and  composing  effect 
upon  their  judgment,  not  of  literary  works  only,  but 
of  men  and  events  in  general.  They  are  like  persons 
Vho  have  had  a  very  weighty  and  impressive  experi- 
ence :  they  are  more  truly  than  others  under  the  empire 
of  facts,  and  more  independent  of  the  language  current 
among  those  with  whom  they  live."  That  is  admirably 
said,  and  it  is  the  last  word. 

One  is  rather  surprised  to  find  the  author  of  this 
luminous  Essay,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  dated  the 
14th  of  April  1853,  comparing  Villette  unfavourably 
with  My  Xovel.  For  though  Bulwer  was  a  brilliant 
novelist,  and  is  now,  perhaps,  too  much  neglected, 
there  is  more  genius  in  the  pages  of  Villette  than  in  all 
the  books  he  ever  wrote.  But  the  letter  contains  also 
an  announcement  of  much  interest.  "  I  am  occupied," 
he  says,  "  with  a  thing  that  gives  me  more  pleasure 
than  anything  I  have  ever  done  yet,  which  is  a  good 
sign ;  l>ut  whether  I  shall  not  ultimately  spoil  it  by 
being  obliged  to  strike  it  oif  in  fragments  in.stead  of 


46  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

at  one  heat  I  cannot  quite  say."  He  certainly  did  not 
spoil  it.  For  the  thing  was  "  Sohrab  and  Rustuni," 
which  all  admirers  of  Matthew  Arnold  would  put  in 
the  front  rank  of  his  poems.  It  appeared  for  the 
first  time  in  1853 ;  and  though  Clough  "  remained  in 
suspense  whether  he  liked  it  or  not,"  no  work  of  its 
author's  has  more  genuine  beauty.  Lord  JohnE-ussell, 
who,  in  his  dry  fashion,  was  a  sound  judge  of  good 
literature,  had  already  pronounced  Mr.  Arnold  to  be 
"  the  one  rising  young  poet  of  the  present  day,"  but 
his  fame  really  began  with  the  publication  of  this  his 
third  volume.  "Sohrab  and  Rustum"  is  a  story  of 
Central  Asia,  or,  as  we  used  to  say,  Asia  Minor,  told 
in  blank  verse,  and  in  the  Homeric  vein.  It  is  called 
"  An  Episode,"  and  begins  in  character  with  the  word 
"  And."  Far  more  truly  Homeric  than  Clough's  jolt- 
ing hexameters,  it  is  as  good  a  specimen  of  Homer's 
manner  as  can  be  found  in  English.  Eustum  is  a 
barbarian,  though  not  an  undignified  barbarian.  But 
the  gentle  and  sympathetic  character  of  Sohrab  is  one 
of  the  best  and  most  delicate  that  Matthew  Arnold  ever 
drew.  That  he  falls  by  the  hand  of  his  unconscious 
father  is  the  simple  tragedy  of  the  piece.  Very  noble 
is  his  reply  to  the  still  sceptical  Eustum  — 

♦'  Truth  sits  upon  the  lips  of  dying  men, 
And  Falsehood,  while  I  liv'd,  was  far  from  mine." 

And  when  Eustum,  at  last  convinced  that  he  has  slain 
his  son,  prays  that  the  Oxus  may  drown  him,  Sohrab 
replies,  in  the  exquisite  lines  — 

"  'Desire  not  that,  my  father  ;  thou  must  live. 
For  some  ai'e  born  to  do  great  deeds,  and  live. 
As  some  are  born  to  be  obscur'd,  and  die. 


IV.]  TVORK   AND   POETRY  47 

Do  thou  the  deeds  I  die  too  young  to  do, 
And  reap  a  second  glory  in  thine  age.'  " 

"The  Cluirch  of  l^roii"  is  chiefly  vahiable  for  its 
beautiful  conclusion  in  heroic  verse,  beginning  — 

"  So  rest,  for  ever  rest,  O  Princely  Pair  ! 
In  your  high  Church,  'mid  the  still  mountain  air." 

The  church,  however,  is  not  in  the  mountains,  but  in 
the  treeless,  waterless  Burgundian  plains.  The  story 
is  not  interesting,  nor  otherwise  well  told.  The  lovely 
stanzas  called  "  Eequiescat  "  ("  Strew  on  her  roses, 
roses  ")  is  perhaps  as  familiar  as  anything  that  INIatthew 
Arnold  wrote.  This  perfect  little  lyric  is  worthily 
rendered  into  Greek  Elegiacs  in  "  Arundines  Cami." 
"Tlifi  Scholar  Gipsy/'  though  it  specially  appeals 
through  its  topography  and  atmosphere  to  Oxford 
men,  is  dear  also  to  all  lovers  of  poetry.  The  quaint 
and  fantastic  tale,  first  told  by  Glanvil,  of  the  young 
Oxford  student  who  was  forced  by  poverty  to  leave 
Oxford  and  herd  with  the  gipsies,  is  told  again  by  a 
lover  of  the  district,  the  most  beautiful  in  the  English 
midlands.  Tlie  objection  that  the  poem  is  too  topo- 
graphical seems  to  me  irrelevant.  No  one  quarrels 
with  Burns  for  describing  Ayrshire,  and  the  scenery 
of  "The  Scholar  Gipsy"  is  as  familiar  as  their  own 
homes  to  thousands  of  educated  Englishmen.  The 
poem  is  not  one  from  which  detached  passages  can 
easily  be  quoted. 

"  Sad  Patience,  too  near  neighbour  to  Despair," 
is  very  close  to  Shelley. 

"  Still  nursing  the  unconquerable  hope, 
Still  clutching  the  inviolable  shade, 


48  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

With  a  free  onward  impulse  brushing  through, 
By  night,  the  silver'd  branches  of  the  glade," 

are  lines  which,  for  a  sort  of  magical  charm,  have 
seldom  been  surpassed.  Fine  as  they  are  themselves, 
the  last  two  stanzas  of  "  The  Scholar  Gipsy  "  are  a 
little  out  of  place. 

"  The  young  light-hearted  Masters  of  the  waves," 

is  a  line  one  would  not  willingly  lose.  But  the 
elaborate  simile  of  the  "  grave  Tyrian  trader "  and 
the  ''merry  Grecian  coaster"  is  a  less  fitting  end 
than  the  melancholy  contrast  between  the  scholar's 
blissful  simplicity  and  our  mental  strife.  The  stanzas 
in  "  Memory  of  the  late  Edward  Quillinan,  Esq.,"  a 
forgotten  poet,  remembered,  if  at  all,  as  Wordsworth's 
son-in-law,  and  the  translator  of  Camoens,  are  rather  a 
copy  of  verses  than  a  poem. 

In  1855  appeared  Poems  by  3fattheiv  Arnold,  second 
series.  Of  these,  two  only,  "  Balder  Dead "  and 
"  Separation,"  were  new.  By  this  time,  though  his 
popularity  was  not  wide,  his  reputation  was  assured. 
Reviewers  had  begun  to  treat  him  with  respect, 
though  there  was  one  curious  exception.  Writing  on 
the  3rd  of  August  1854  to  Mr.  Wyndham  Slade,  he 
adds  this  postscript :  "  My  love  to  J.  D.  C,  and  tell 
him  that  the  limited  circulation  of  the  Christian 
Remembrancer,  makes  the  unquestionable  viciousness  of 
his  article  of  little  importance.  I  am  sure  he  will  be 
gratified  to  think  that  it  is  so."  After  Mr.  Arnold's 
death.  Lord  Coleridge,  in  obvious  allusion  to  this 
incident,  said  that  the  article  in  the  Christian  Re- 
membrancer, of  which  he  afterwards  bitterly  repented, 


IV.]  "WORK   AND   POETRY  40 

did  not  make  the  slightest  difference  in  the  -Nvarmth  of 
a  lifelong  friendship.  Mr.  Arnold  "svas,  indeed,  as 
nearly  incapable  of  resentment  as  a  human  creature 
can  be.  He  "was  endoAved  with  one  of  those  perfect 
tempers  which  are  of  more  value  that  many  fortunes. 
"  Balder  Dead "  is,  like  *•  Sohrab  and  Kustum," 
Homeric  in  tone,  although  the  subject  is  taken  from 
the  Norse  mythology.  It  has  not  the  human  interest 
of  the  earlier  poem.  Balder,  though  lie  died,  was  a 
god,  and  the  whole  machinery  is  supernatural.  A 
Frenchman  would  have  said  that  'Mi:  Arnold  had 
accomplished  a  tour  de  force,  and  obtained  a  succHs 
cVestime.  Nevertheless,  "  Balder  Dead "  is  full  of 
beauty,  the  verse  is  musical  as  well  as  stately,  and 
the  mourning  of  nature  for  "Balder,"  believed  to  be 
invulnerable,  but  slain  by  a  stratagem,  is  admirably 
described.  Some  passages  in  it  are  purely  Greek,  as, 
for  instance,  this  speech  of  Balder  — 

"  Ilermod  the  nimble,  gild  me  not  my  death  1 
Better  to  live  a  serf,  a  captured  man, 
Who  scatters  rushes  in  a  master's  hall, 
Than  be  a  crowu'd  king  here,  and  rule  the  dead." 

"While  the  line  about  "  the  northern  Bear  "  — 
"  And  is  alone  not  dipt  in  Ocean's  stream," 
is  exactly  the  beautiful  — 

"  Balder  Dead  "  must  always  be  a  poem  for  the  few. 
But  it  will  luive  readers  wlu)  enjoy  it  intensely,  even 
though  they  feel  that  it  lacks  tlie  pecidiar  fascination 


50  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap.  iv. 

of  "Sohrab  and  Rustum."  "Separation,"  afterwards 
included  in  "Faded  Leaves,"  has  a  tenderness  and  a 
depth  of  feeling  quite  foreign  to  academic  exercises 
like  "Balder  Dead."  It  comes,  like  the  songs  of 
Burns,  straight  from  the  heart,  and  the  last  stanza, 
though  not  faultless  in  form,  is  indescribably  pa- 
thetic :  — 

"Then,  when  we  meet,  and  thy  look  strays  toward  me, 
Scanning  my  face  and  the  changes  wrought  there  : 
TT7io,  let  me  say,  is  this  Stranger  regards  me, 
With  the  grey  eyes,  and  the  lovely  brown  hair?'''' 

The  effect  of  the  word  "  Stranger "  could  only  have 
been  produced  by  the  art  which  conceals  itself,  and 
appears  as  simplicity. 

On  the  17th  of  February  1856,  Mr.  Arnold  wrote  to 
his  sister  that  he  had  been  elected  at  the  Athenaeum, 
and  looked  forward  with  "  rapture  "  to  the  use  of  the 
library.  One  of  the  first  books  he  read  in  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  new  volume  of  Ruskin's  Modern  Painters, 
upon  which  he  passed,  on  the  Slst  of  March,  this 
singular  judgment:  "Full  of  excellent  aper<^us,  as 
usual,  but  the  man  and  character  too  febrile,  irritable, 
and  weak  to  allow  him  to  possess  the  ordo  concate- 
natioque  veri."  How  he  would  have  laughed  at  this 
pedantry  if  it  had  come  from  a  Positivist. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE    OXFOKD    CHAIR 


On"  the  5th  of  ^Nla}^  1857,  Mr.  Arnold  was  elected  by 
Convocation  to  the  Professorship  of  Poetry  at  Oxford. 
His  unsuccessful  competitor  was  the  Keverend  John 
Ernest  P>ode,  author  of  Ballads  from  Herodotus,  and  a 
thoroughly  orthodox  divine.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  illus- 
trating the  difference  between  ancient  and  modern 
Oxford,  that  all  Mr.  Arnold's  predecessors  in  the  chair 
were  clergymen.  All  his  successors  have  been  lay- 
men. The  Professorship  was  founded  in  1808.  The 
emoluments  were  trifling,  not  more  than  a  hundred 
pounds  a  year.  On  the  other  hand,  the  duties  were 
not  heavy,  while  the  statutory  obligation  to  lecture  in 
Latin,  to  which  !Milman  and  Keble  were  subject,  had 
been  removed.  His  inaugural  lecture  was,  however, 
severely  classical  in  tone.  Its  subject  was  "  The  IMod- 
ern  Element  in  Literature,"  and  in  it  Mr.  Arnold 
dwelt  upon  the  close  intellectual  sympathy  between 
Greece  in  the  days  of  Pericles  and  the  England  of  his 
own  day.  Both  ages,  he  said,  demanded  intellectual 
deliverance,  and  obtained  it  from  literature,  especially 
from  poetry.  Thus,  comparing  the  Periclean  with  the 
Elizabethan  age,  he  showed  how  much  more  modern  a 
historian  was  Thucydidcs  than  Ilaleigh.  liut  the 
writers  most  akin  to  our  own  were,  he  contended,  tlie 
Greek  dramatic  i)oets,  especially  Sophocles  and  Aristo- 

61 


62  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [chap. 

phanes.  Latin  poetry,  being  essentially  imitative,  did 
not  interpret  the  time  as  Greek  poetry  did.  This  lec- 
ture was  not  published  till  February  1869,  when  it 
appeared  in  Macmillan's  Ilagazine.  It  was  followed 
by  others  on  the  same  subject,  which  have  never  been 
published  at  all.  Although  Mr.  Arnold  retained  his 
Professorship  for  ten  years,  he  disliked,  as  is  well 
known,  the  title  of  Professor.  It  classed  him,  as  he 
plaintively  remarked,  with  Professor  Pepper  of  the 
Polytechnic,  Professor  Anderson,  "  The  Wizard  of  the 
North,"  and  other  great  men  with  whom  he  could  not 
aspire  to  rank.  lie  never  as  Professor  resided  in  Ox- 
ford. He  wished  to  be  considered  a  man  of  letters  and 
of  the  world,  provided  with  an  honourable  and  advan- 
tageous platform  from  which  to  expound  his  ideas. 

The  real  inauguration  of  Mr.  Arnold's  Professorship 
was  his  tragedy  called  '•'  Merope,"  which  appeared  iu 
1858  with  an  elaborate  and  justificatory  Preface.  In 
this  Mr.  Arnold  described  England  as  the  stronghold  of 
the  romantic  school,  and  renewed  the  plea  for  classical 
principles  which  he  had  put  forward  in  the  Introduc- 
tion to  his  Collected  Poems.  The  story  of  Merope, 
the  widowed  queen  of  Messenia,  whose  son  ^pytus 
avenges  upon  Polyphontes  the  murder  of  Cresphontes, 
his  father,  was  well  known  to  antiquity.  Aristotle 
cites  as  specially  dramatic  the  scene  where  Merope  is 
on  the  point  of  killing  .^pytus,  not  recognising  him 
for  her  son,  but  believing  him  to  be  her  son's  destroyer. 
Euripides  made  it  the  subject  of  a  play,  but  only  a  few 
fragments  have  come  down  to  us.  Maffei,  Voltaire,  and 
Alfieri  successively  dramatised  it,  altering  it  more  or 
less  to  suit  modern  taste.  Mr.  Arnold  adhered  more 
strictly  to  the  authority,  such  as  it  is,  of  Hyginus,  but 


v.]  THE   OXFORD  CHAIR  63 

omitted,  as  too  revolting,  the  marriage  of  IVIerope  with 
Polyphontes,  who  slew  her  husband.  He  seems  to 
liave  forgotten  that  this  was  an  incident  in  the  great- 
est of  all  plays,  and  that  the  master  of  human  nature 
had  not  shrunk  from  presenting  Gertrude  as  the  wife 
of  Claudius.  This  Preface  contains  an  attack  upon 
French  Alexandrines,  which  is  quite  unnecessary,  and 
a  criticism  of  Voltaire  as  a  playwright  which  is  a 
little  out  of  place,  though  the  comparison  with  Racine 
is  good.  But  by  far  the  best  part  of  it  is  that  which 
describes,  with  admirable  brevity  and  clearness,  the 
rise  of  the  Greek  drama.  No  one  save  Aristotle  has 
explained  in  fewer  words,  or  with  more  picturesque 
lucidity,  the  growth  of  the  complete  play  from  the 
chorus  and  the  messenger.  The  chorus  was  originally 
part  of  the  audience  to  whom  the  narrative  was 
addressed,  though  they  were  the  only  part  of  the 
audience  who  ventured  to  interrupt.  "  The  lyrical 
element,"  as  Mr.  Arnold  well  says,  "  was  a  relief  and 
solace  in  the  stress  and  conflict  of  the  action,"  like 
the  comic  scenes  which,  as  Coleridge  observed,  Shake- 
speare interposed  after  great  tragic  events.  Mr. 
Arnold's  ideas  were  excellent.  It  was  in  carrying 
them  out  that  he  failed.  To  criticise  "Merope"  is 
to  dissect  a  corpse,  yf/v^^dptov  tl  (SdcTTa^ov  veKpbv,  would 
be  a  better  motto  than  <^tAoKaA.oii/xev  per'  evrfAtta?, 
which  is  the  actual  one.  In  vain  does  Mr.  Arnold 
make  Polyphontes  a  wise  and  strong  king,  endeavour- 
ing by  years  of  virtuous  rule  to  expiate  the  crime  into 
which  ambition  lias  betrayed  him.  He  does  not  excite 
our  interest,  nor  does  ]\[erope,  nor  ^pytus,  ncir  any 
of  them.  The  imitation  is  very  skilful.  "Merope" 
is  far  more    strictly    Greek    in   tone   and  style  than 


54  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

"  Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  which  is  not  really  Greek  at 
all.  But  it  has  not  the  sweep,  the  ring,  the  melody, 
nor  the  sensuous  beauty  of  that  fascinating,  though 
irregular  drama.  It  is  the  form  without  the  spirit, 
the  body  without  the  soul.  "  Merope  "  purports  to  be 
a  Greek  play  in  English  dress.  It  is  really  a  prize 
poem  of  inordinate  length.  Mr.  Arnold  himself  hoped 
great  things  from  it.  "  I  must  read  '  Merope '  to  you," 
he  says  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Forster  of  the  25th  of  July 
1857.  ''  I  think  and  hope  it  will  have  what  Buddha 
called  the  character  of  Fixity,  that  true  sign  of  the 
Law."  But  literature  is  not  law,  and  requires  some- 
thing more  than  fixity,  something,  as  Carlyle  would 
say,  quite  other  than  fixity.  "Merope"  had  a  kind 
of  success,  and  not  the  kind  which  the  author  least 
valued.  Dr.  Temple,  the  new  Headmaster  of  Rugby, 
an  excellent  judge,  admired  it.  So  did  George  Henry 
Lewes,  so  did  Kingsley,  and  so,  with  some  reserva- 
tions upon  the  choice  of  a  subject,  did  Fronde.  It 
even  sold  well.  But  the  general  public  never  took  to 
it,  and  few  competent  critics  would  now,  I  think,  say 
that  they  were  wrong.  There  are  good  lines  here  and 
there,  such  as  the  gnome  — 

"For  tyrants  make  man  good  beyond  himself," 

and  the  thoroughly  Greek  antithesis  — 

"Thy  crown  condemns  thee,  while  thy  tongue  absolves," 

and  the  characteristic  couplets  — 

"To  hear  another  tumult  in  these  streets, 
To  have  another  murder  in  these  halls." 

"  So  rule,  that  as  thy  father  thou  be  loved  ; 
So  rule,  that  as  thy  foe  thou  be  obey'd." 


v.]  THE   OXFOHD   CHAIR  55 

But  the  unrhymed  choruses  are  harsh  almost  beyond 
belief,  as,  for  instance  — 

"  She  led  the  way  of  death. 
And  the  plain  of  Tegea, 
And  the  grave  of  Orestes  — 
Where,  in  secret  seclusion 
Of  his  unreveal'd  tomb, 
Sleeps  Agamemnon's  unhappy, 
Matricidal,  world-famed, 
Seven-cubit-statured  son  — 
Sent  forth  Echemus,  the  victor,  the  king." 

Perhaps  the  best  of  the  choric  lines  are  the  following, 
which  express  one  of  Mr.  Arnold's  favourite  ideas  :  — 

"  Yea,  and  not  only  have  we  not  explored 
That  wide  and  various  world,  the  heart  of  others, 
But  even  our  own  heart,  that  narrow  world 
Bounded  in  (ftir  own  breast,  we  hardly  know, 
Of  our  own  actions  dimly  trace  the  causes." 

But  how  heavy  and  lifeless  are  these  verses  compared 
with  the  simple  stanza  in  "  Parting  "  — 

"  Far,  far  from  each  other 
Our  spirits  have  grown  ; 
And  what  heart  knows  another  ? 
Ah  I  who  knows  his  own  ?  " 

Mr.  Arnold  was  anxious  that  "Merope"  should  be 
shown  to  Kobert  Browning,  whose  "  Fragment  of  a 
Ilippolytus,"  that  is,  "Artemis  Prologises,"  he  justly 
admired.  But  !^^r.  Browning,  as  we  have  seen,  liad 
the  good  taste  to  prefer  "Empedocles,"  with  which 
'•  Merope "  was  republished  in  1885.  ISIr.  Arnold 
(Considered  Mrs.  Browning  as  "  hopelessly  confirmed  in 
her  aberration  from  health,  natui-e,  beauty,  and  truth." 


66  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [chap. 

The  judgment  was  severe,  but  at  this  distance  of  time 
one  can  hardly  say  tliat  it  was  unsound.  What  Mr. 
Arnold  failed  to  see  was  that  in  these  forced  experi- 
ments he  ran  no  small  danger  of  the  same  kind  himself. 

At  the  beginning  of  1858,  nearly  seven  years  after 
his  marriage,  Mr.  Arnold  took  a  small  house  in  Chester 
Square,  and  for  the  first  time  acquired  a  settled  home. 
Both  he  and  his  wife  were  fortunately  fond  of  travel- 
ling. But  his  incessant  movements  as  Inspector  had 
more  than  satisfied  the  taste,  and  they  were  glad  to 
have  a  fixed  abode.  Mr.  Arnold,  however,  still  con- 
tinued his  official  tours,  and  on  the  29th  of  October 
1858  he  heard  John  Bright  speak  at  Birmingham. 
"He  is  an  orator  of  almost  the  highest  rank  —  voice 
and  manner  excellent ;  perhaps  not  quite  flow  enough 
—  not  that  he  halts  or  stammers,  but  I  like  to  have 
sometimes  more  of  a  rush  than  he  ever  gives  you.  He 
is  a  far  better  speaker  than  Gladstone."  That  a  "  far 
better  speaker  than  Gladstone  "  should  not  be  an  ora- 
tor of  the  highest  rank  is  a  strange  paradox.  Other- 
wise the  description  is  excellent,  and  the  comparative 
merits  of  the  two  speakers  will  always  divide  opinion. 

Our  feelings,  says  a  poet  not  unlike  Matthew  Arnold, 
thousfh  inferior  to  him  — 


'o-* 


"  Our  feelings  lose  poetic  flow 
Soon  after  twenty -seven  or  so." 

When  Mr.  Arnold  became  Professor  of  Poetry,  he  was 
thirty- four,  and  his  creative  work  as  a  poet  was  almost 
finished.  In  quality  some  of  his  later  poems  are 
exquisite.  But  the  quantity  of  them  is  very  small. 
Perhaps  the  critical  faculty  superseded  the  poetical 
one.     He  himself  said  that  the  critic  should  keep  out 


v.]  THE   OXFOED   CHAIR  57 

of  the  region  of  immediate  practice.  But  his  first 
published  work  in  prose  was  a  political  pamphlet.  It 
appeared  in  1859  with  the  title  England  and  the  Italian 
Question,  and  a  motto  from  the  Vulgate,  Sed  nondum 
estjinis,  —  "But  the  end  is  not  yet."  This  pamphlet, 
never  republished,  and  now  very  scarce,  is  a  philo- 
sophical argument  for  the  freedom  and  independence 
of  Italy.  It  contains  some  curiously  bad  prophecies, 
such  as  that  Alsace  must  always  be  French,  and  that 
Prussia  could  not  take  the  field  against  either  Austria 
or  France.  But  the  historical  argument  for  Italy  is 
strong,  and  well  put.  Mr.  Arnold  shows  that  Italy 
was  independent  of  a  foreign  yoke  throughout  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  His  Liberalism, 
however,  was  always  moderate,  being,  in  fact,  Whig- 
gery ;  and  when  he  comes  forward  as  the  champion  of 
Italian  nationality,  he  is  careful  to  disclaim  all  sym- 
pathy with  such  inferior  races  as  the  Hungarians,  the 
Irish,  and  the  Poles.  In  the  true  Whig  spirit,  which 
Mr.  Arnold  may  have  imbibed  from  Lord  Lansdowne, 
is  his  eulogy  of  the  English  aristocracy,  and  the  gov- 
erning skill  they  had  displayed  since  the  Revolution 
of  1688. 

"WTien  Mr.  Arnold  praised  the  disinterestedness  of 
France,  he  did  not  foresee  the  annexation  of  Savoy  and 
Nice,  which  followed  next  year,  having  really  been 
arranged  before  the  war  between  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon and  Count  Cavour.  Victor  Emmanuel  obtained 
for  Italy  Loml)ardy  and  the  central  Italian  Provinces, 
except  Venetia  and  the  Papal  States.  The  inhabitants 
of  Nice  and  Savoy  voted  by  overwhelming  majorities 
for  incorporation  with  France,  but  it  can  haidly  be 
said  with  truth  that  Louis  Napoleon's  policy  was  disin- 


58  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

terested.  The  opportunity  of  observing  public  opinion 
in  France  on  the  war  was  given  to  Mr.  Arnold  by  his 
appointment,  in  January  1859,  as  Foreign  Assistant 
Commissioner  on  Education  to  visit  France,  Holland, 
Belgium,  Switzerland,  and  Piedmont.  "  I  cannot  tell 
you,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister.  Miss  Arnold,  "  how  much 
I  like  the  errand,  and,  above  all,  to  have  the  French 
district."  Holland  he  did  not  appreciate,  and  he  pro- 
nounced the  Belgians  to  be  the  most  contemptible  peo- 
ple in  Europe.  But  France  he  thoroughly  enjoyed, 
especially  Paris,  where  he  was  always  at  home.  At 
Paris  he  "  had  a  long  and  very  interesting  conversation 
with  Lord  Cowley  tete-ci-tete  for  about  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  the  other  day.  .  .  .  He  entirely  shared  my 
conviction  as  to  the  French  always  beating  any  num- 
ber of  Germans  who  come  into  the  field  against 
them"  {Letters,  vol.  i.  p.  96).  Such  are  the  pro- 
jjhetic  powers  of  exalted  diplomatists.  In  this  same 
letter  Mr.  Arnold  refers  to  that  political  classic, 
"Mill  on  Liberty,"  in  language  of  very  chastened 
enthusiasm.  "  It  is,"  he  says,  '-  worth  reading  at- 
tentively, being  one  of  the  few  books  that  incul- 
cate tolerance  in  an  unalarming  and  inoffensive 
way."  At  Paris  also  Mr.  Arnold  met  Prosper  Merimee, 
and  dined  with  Sainte-Beuve.  He  was  much  amused 
to  find  himself  described  as  "  Monsieur  le  Professeur 
Docteur  Arnold,  Directeur- General  de  toutes  les  ficoles 
de  la  Grande  Bretagne,"  which  is  certainly  a  compre- 
hensive title. 

On  Mr.  Arnold's  return  to  England  he  joined  the 
Queen's  Westminster  Volunteers ;  and  it  is  strange  to 
read  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  dated  the  21st  of  Novem- 
ber 1859,  a  refutation  of  the  long  since  obsolete  argu- 


v.]  THE   OXFORD   CHAIR  59 

ment  that  it  was  dangerous  to  arm  the  people.  *'  The 
bad  feature  in  the  proceeding,"  he  says,  "  is  the  hideous 
English  toadyism  with  which  lords  and  great  people 
are  invested  with  the  commands  in  the  corps  they  join, 
quite  without  respect  of  any  consideration  of  their 
efficiency.  This  proceeds  from  our  national  bane  — 
the  immense  vulgar-mindedness,  and,  so  far,  real  infe- 
riority of  the  English  middle  classes."  It  is  important 
in  these  years,  before  Mr.  Arnold  took  up  definitely 
the  business  of  a  critic,  to  watch  the  development  of 
his  literary  opinions.  There  was  always  something 
antipathetic  to  him  in  Tennyson.  "  The  fault  I  find 
with  Tennyson"  (he  wrote,  on  the  17th  of  December 
18G0,  about  the  Idylls  of  the  King),  "  is  that  the  pecul- 
iar charm  and  aroma  of  the  Middle  Age  he  does  not 
give  in  them."  That,  I  think,  would  be  generally  ad- 
mitted. Much  more  disputable  is  what  follows.  "The 
real  truth  is  [ahvays  a  suspicious  beginning]  that  Ten- 
nyson, with  all  his  temperament  and  artistic  skill,  is 
deficient  in  intellectual  power."  After  all,  he  wrote 
In  Meinoriam.  ^latthew  Arnold,  despite  his  Sonnet, 
did  not  share  the  national  idolatry  of  Shakespeare. 
Compared  with  Homer,  he  was  imperfection  to  perfec- 
tion. 

Like  most  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes  at  the 
time,  ^[r.  Arnold  completely  misjudged  the  situation 
in  America  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War.  On  the 
28th  of  January  IHGl  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Forster:  "I 
have  not  mucli  faith  in  the  nobility  of  nature  of  the 
Northern  Americans.  I  believe  they  would  consent  to 
any  compromise  sooner  than  let  the  Southern  States 
go.  However,  I  believe  the  latter  mean  to  go,  and 
think  they  will  do  better  by  going,  so  the  baseness 


60  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

of  the  North  will  not  be  tempted  too  strongly."     Mrs. 
Forster's  husband  took  a  juster  view. 

In  1861  appeared,  first  as  a  Parliamentary  Blue 
Book,  and  afterwards  as  an  independent  volume,  Mr. 
Arnold's  Popular  Education  in  France,  with  Notices  of 
that  of  Holland  and  Switzerland.  The  Introduction, 
which  alone  has  much  interest  now,  was  republished 
nearly  twenty  years  afterwards  in  Mixed  Essays,  and 
called  "Democracy."  It  is  a  State  paper  of  great 
value  and  importance.  Mr.  Arnold  was  always  a  keen 
critic  of  his  own  countrymen.  He  had  learned  from 
his  father's  eloquent  and  dignified  Lectures  on  Modern 
History,  that  to  flatter  a  great  nation  like  England 
was  to  insult  her,  and  that  it  was  part  of  true  patriot- 
ism to  tell  her  of  her  faults.  In  this  paper,  written 
with  the  admirable  simplicity  that  always  distin- 
guished his  style,  and  Avitliout  the  mannerisms  that 
afterwards  disfigured  it,  he  argues  that  the  English 
dread  of  interference  by  the  State,  formerly  natural 
and  reasonable,  had  become  irrational  and  obsolete. 
An  aristocratic  executive,  he  contended,  was  inclined 
to  govern  as  little  as  possible,  and  such  an  executive 
England  had  hitherto  possessed.  But  with  the  spread 
of  democratic  ideas,  which  he  observed  with  the  cold 
but  appreciative  sympathy  of  a  Whig,  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  franchise,  which  he  clearly  foresaw,  there 
would,  he  thought,  be  more  need  and  less  repugnance 
for  the  action  of  the  Government.  He  cites  the  ex- 
ample of  France,  where  the  "  common  people,"  or,  as  we 
should  say,  the  masses,  were  in  his  opinion  superior  to 
oar  own.  The  moral  he  drew  was,  of  course,  the  neces- 
sity of  public  teaching,  organised  by  the  State.  No 
other  would  have  been  relevant  to  his  subject.     Yet 


T.]  THE   OXFORD   CHAIR  61 

it  is  remarkable  that  the  schools  which  he  recom- 
mended were  not  those  elementary  establishments  set 
up  ten  years  later  by  his  brother-in-law,  but  the  second- 
ary schools  of  France.  He  endeavoured  therefore  to 
combat  the  jealousy  of  the  State  which  pervaded  the 
middle  classes,  and  to  prove  that  they  required  its  aid 
in  bringing  order  out  of  chaos.  Admitting  that  there 
was  too  much  government  in  France,  he  urged  that 
there  was  too  little  in  England,  and  as  an  Englishman 
he  pleaded  for  more.  High  reason  and  fine  culture 
were,  he  said,  the  great  objects  for  which  the  nation 
should  strive.  lie  lamented  the  decline  of  aristocratic 
culture,  of  which  the  fine  flower  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury was  Lord  Carteret.  But  culture,  except  so  far  as 
it  involves  leisure,  has  nothing  to  do  with  class,  and 
Lord  Carteret  was  a  wholly  exceptional  man.  If  Mr. 
Arnold  had  taken  the  Lord  Derby  of  his  own  day,  and 
compared  him  with  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  in  Lord 
Carteret's  time,  or  if  he  had  contrasted  Mr.  Gladstone 
with  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  the  result  would  have  been 
very  different.  But  this  is  by  the  way.  ]\[r.  Arnold's 
main  principle  in  this  excellent  essay  is  perfectly 
sound ;  and  though  popular  education  did  not  develop 
itself  in  the  precise  form  he  expected,  a  deep  debt  of 
gratitude  is  due  to  him  for  the  interest  he  aroused  in 
its  progress. 

In  18G1  ^Iv.  Arnold  published  his  three  lectures  "  On 
translating  Homer,"  followed  the  next  year  by  a  fourth 
on  the  same  subject  called  "  Last  Words."  These  most 
interesting  and  valuable  discourses  have  been  the  de- 
light of  all  scholars  ever  since  they  appeared.  They 
are  among  the  anthor's  most  characteristic  productions, 
showing  even  for  tlie  first  time  that  tendency  to  the 


62  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

undue  repetition  of  words  and  phrases  which  after- 
wards became  a  vice  of  his  style.  From  one  of  Mr. 
Arnold's  main  conclusions  I  respectfully,  and  in  good 
company,  dissent.  I  cannot  think  that  the  English 
hexameter  is  the  best  metre  for  a  translation  of 
Homer.  The  English  hexameter  is  an  exotic,  which 
does  not  flourish  in  our  soil.  Occasional  instances  to 
the  contrary  may  be  quoted  from  Longfellow's  '*  Evan- 
geline "  and  from  Kingsley's  "  Andromeda  "  — 

"Chanting    the    hundredth    Psalm,   that    grand  old    Puritan 
anthem," 

Avhich  is  Longfellow's,  and 

"As  when  an  osprey  aloft,  dock-eyebrowed,  royally  crested," 

which  is  Kingsley's,  are  perfect.  But  such  successes 
cannot  be  maintained.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  one  ex- 
ample to  the  contrary  in  the  English  language  is  Dr. 
Hawtrey's  famous  translation  from  the  third  book  of 
the  Iliad,  beginning 

"  Clearly  the  rest  I  behold  of  the  dark-eyed  sons  of  Achaia," 
and  ending 
"  There  in  their  own  dear  land,  their  fatherland,  Lacedsemon." 

Mr.  Arnold's  own  specimens  do  not  rise  much  above 
mediocrity,  and  he  must  have  been  misled  by  personal 
friendship  when  he  compared  Clough's  clever  verse- 
making  with  the  simple  dignity  of  Homer.  We  may 
feel  then  that  Mr.  Arnold  was  right  when  he  declined 
the  proposal  to  translate  Homer  himself,  and  yet  be 
supremely  grateful  to  him  for  having  dealt  in  so  lumi- 
nous a  manner  with  the  general  principles  of  transla- 
tion.    He  was  unfortunately  led  by  the  accidents  of 


v.]  THE   OXFORD  CHAIR  63 

time  and  place,  or  perhaps  by  the  spirit  of  mockery, 
to  bestow  too  much  notice  upon  a  very  bad  translation 
of  Homer  made  by  a  very  learned  man.  Mr.  Francis 
Newman  of  Balliol,  brother  of  the  celebrated  Cardinal, 
though  eccentric  in  many  ways,  never  did  anything? 
more  eccentric  than  his  translation  of  the  Iliad,  which, 
but  for  .Mr.  Arnold,  would  have  died  almost  as  soon  as 
it  Avas  born.  Pope,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Arnold  dis- 
misses with  Bentley's  scornful  dictum,  for  which  Pope 
put  him  in  the  "Dunciad,"  that  it  was  a  pretty  poem, 
but  not  Homer.  It  is  certainly  not  Homer,  for  the 
very  good  reason  that  Pope  knew  little  or  no  Greek. 
But  it  is  much  more  than  a  pretty  poem,  and  it  will 
never  cease  to  be  read.     Such  lines  as  — 

"  Let  tyrants  govern  with  an  iron  rod, 
Oppress,  destroy,  and  be  the  scourge  of  God  ; 
Since  he  who  like  a  father  held  his  reign, 
So  soon  forgot,  was  just  and  mild  in  vain," 

are  imperishable,  and  no  one  would  wish  that  they 
should  perish.  Pope's  Iliad  and  Pope's  Ody.tsey  are 
great  English  epics.  To  Chapman  also  Mr.  Arnold  is 
less  than  just.  Even  if  Chapman  had  not  inspired 
Keats's  immortal  Sonnet,  the  full  proud  sail  of  his 
great  verse  would  still  be  the  best  English  equivalent 
for  the  majestic  roll  of  the  Greek  hexameter. 

I^Ir.  Arnold's  test  of  Homeric  translation  is  to  ask 
how  it  affects  those  who  both  know  Greek  and  can 
a]ii)reciate  poetry,  such  as  Dr.  Hawtrey  of  Eton,  Dr. 
Thompson  of  Trinit}',  and  Mr.  Jowett  of  Balliol.  'Mr. 
Arnold  rightly  finds  fault  with  "Mr.  lluskin's  fantastic 
tljeory,  that  in  referring  to  the  dcatli  of  Castor  and 
Pollux,   Homor  callfd   the   earth   in   which   they   lay 


64  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

''  life-giving,"  because  lie  wished  to  relieve  the  gloom 
of  the  picture.     Homer  called   the  earth  life-giving, 
there  as  elsewhere,  because  it  was  a  fixed  epithet  of 
the  earth.     But  Mr.  Arnold  himself  is  almost  as  fan- 
tastic when  he  compares  Homer  with  Voltaire  because 
they  are  both  lucid.     Certainly  this  comparison  will 
not  help  the  translator  "  to  reproduce  on  the  general 
reader,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the   general   effect   of 
Homer."     Mr.  Arnold  believed  as  passionately  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  Mr.  Lang  in  the  imity  of  Homer,  which 
Sir  Eichard  Jebb  tells  us  is  incredible.     ''  The  insur- 
mountable obstacle  to  believing  the  Iliad  the  consoli- 
dated work  of  several  poets  is  this :   that  the  work 
of  great  masters  is  unique,  and  the  Iliad  [he  does 
not  here  mention   the  Odyssey^  has  a  great  master's 
genuine  stamp,  and  that  stamp  is  the  grand  style." 
What,  then,  is  the  grand  style  ?    It  "  arises  in  poetry 
when  a  noble  nature,   poetically  gifted,  treats  with 
simplicity  or  with  severity  a  serious  subject."     The 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are  certainly  not  what  we  our- 
selves mean  by  ballad-poetry,  and  attempts  like  Dr. 
Maginn's  to  translate   them  into  a  series  of  ballads 
have  always  failed.     It  is  a  pity   that   Mr.  Arnold 
mixed  up  this   wholesome  doctrine  with  the  highly 
controversial  statement,  from  which  his  own  father 
would  have  been  the  first  to  dissent,  that  Macaulay's 
"pinchbeck"   Lays   were    "one   continual   falsetto." 
The  remark,  moreover,  is  quite   irrelevant,  for  Ma- 
caulay  never  dreamed  of  imitating  Homer.     His  only 
published  translation  from  Homer  is  in  the  metre  of 
Fope,  and  as  unlike  the  Lays  as  possible. 

Homer,  says  Mr.  Arnold,  is  rapid,  plain,  simple,  and 
noble.     The  great  mine  of  diction  for  the  English 


T.]  THE   OXFORD   CHAIR  65 

translator  of  Homer,  he  adds,  is  the  English  Bible. 
So  far,  so  good.  But  it  is  a  long  way  from  those 
premisses  to  the  conclusion  that  the  hexameter  should 
be  the  form  of  verse  employed.  ]\Ir.  Arnold's  case  is 
here  not  a  strong  one.  **  I  know  all  that  is  said,"  he 
tells  us,  "  against  the  use  of  hexameters  in  English 
poetry ;  but  it  comes  only  to  this,  that  among  us  they 
have  not  yet  been  used  on  any  considerable  scale  with 
success.  Soh'itur  ambuhuido :  this  is  an  objection  which 
can  best  be  met  by  producing  good  English  hexame- 
ters." That  is  not  quite  all  that  can  be  said  against 
the  use  of  hexameters  in  English.  It  may  also  be 
said  that  they  depend  upon  quantity,  and  that  English 
poetry  depends  upon  accent.  But  taking  IMr.  Arnold 
at  his  word,  I  cannot  think  that  his  own  hexameters 
justify  his  theory.     Here  are  some  of  them  — 

"  So  shone  fortli,  in  front  of  Troy,  by  the  bed  of  Xanthus, 
Between  that  and  the  ships,  the  Trojan's  numerous  fires. 
In  the  plain  there  were  kindled  a  thousand  fires  :  by  each  one 
There  sat  fifty  men,  in  the  ruddy  light  of  the  fire  : 
By  their  chariots  stood  the  steeds,  and  champed  the  white 

barley, 
WTiile  their  masters  sat  by  the  fire  and  waited  for  morning." 

The  last  line  is  the  best,  but  all  are  wooden.  Compare 
Tennyson's  rendering  of  the  same  passage  in  blank 

verse  — 

"  Romany  a  fire  between  the  ships  and  stream 
Of  Xanthus  blazed  before  the  towers  of  Troy, 
A  thousand  on  the  plain  ;  and  close  by  each 
Sat  fifty  in  the  blaze  of  burning  fire  ; 
And  catim;  hoary  grain  and  pulse  the  steeds, 
Fixt  by  their  cars,  waited  the  golden  dawn." 

These  verses    are    far    more    truly  Homeric    tlian 
Mr.  Arnold's  limping  hexameters.      It   is   the   more 

F 


66  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

strange  that  Mr.  Arnold  should  have  rejected  the 
claiDis  of  blank  verse,  because  his  own  "  Sohrab  and 
Rustum,"  to  say  nothing  of  "  Balder  Dead,"  is  especially 
Homeric.  To  Worsley's  Odyssey,  which  adopts  the 
Spenserian  stanza,  Mr.  Arnold  pays  in  "  Last  Words  " 
a  due  tribute  of  high  praise.  In  this  same  lecture 
he  alludes  to  the  death  of  Clough,  which  he  after- 
wards lamented  in  verse  not  unlike  that  consecrated 
by  Moschus  to  the  death  of  Bion. 

Mr.  Arnold's  life,  which  was  not  an  eventful  one,  can 
be  traced  with  sufficient  clearness  from  his  letters. 
He  thought  "  Essays  and  Reviews  "  a  breach  of  the 
scriptural  rule  against  putting  new  wine  into  old 
bottles,  and  had  needless  fears  for  their  effect  upon 
Dr.  Temple's  position  at  Rugby.  Nothing  has  ever 
been  able  to  keep  Dr.  Temple  back,  or  to  diminish  the 
public  respect  for  his  rugged,  massive  character.  Early 
in  1861  Sainte-Beuve  published  his  volume  on  Chateau- 
briand, with  a  French  translation  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
poem  on  "  Obermann,"  which  naturally  gave  the  author 
much  pleasure.  In  the  same  year  Mr.  Arnold  contrib- 
uted to  a  volume  called  Victoria  Regia,  edited  by 
Adelaide  Procter,  the  lovely  poem  entitled  "  A  South- 
ern Night."  These  exquisite  stanzas  were  written  to 
commemorate  his  brother  William,  who  died  at  Gibral- 
tar on  the  way  back  from  India  in  April  1859.  The 
best  known,  and  perhaps  the  best,  lines  in  it,  are  those 
which  describe  us  world-pervading  English  folk  who 
are  ever  on  the  move  — 

"  And  see  all  sights  from  pole  to  pole, 
And  glance  and  nod  and  bustle  by  — 
And  never  once  possess  our  soul 
Before  we  die." 


v.]  THE   OXFORD   CHAIR  67 

The  Revised  Code  of  18G2,  in  Avhicli  ]\rr.  Arnold 
took  a  keen,  though  not  a  friendly  interest,  was  a 
consequence  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's  Commission, 
appointed  the  previous  year.  But  it  went  beyond 
the  Report  of  the  Commissioners.  It  was  really  the 
work  of  ^Iv.  Lowe,  the  Vice-President  of  the  Council, 
and  Mr.  Lingen,  the  Secretary  to  the  Department. 
Mr.  Lowe  was,  perhaps,  the  ablest,  certainly  the 
cleverest,  man  who  ever  held  that  important  office. 
Like  Mr.  Lingen,  he  had  highly  distinguished  himself 
at  Oxford,  but  his  views  on  the  education  of  the 
masses  were  strictly  and  exclusively  ultilitarian.  He 
was  very  clear-headed ;  he  always  knew  what  he 
wanted ;  and  though  he  rather  liked  flouting  popular 
prejudices,  he  had  the  knack  of  coining  popular  phrases. 
Taking  up  a  remark  of  the  Commissioners  that  too 
much  time  was  spent  in  the  national  schools  upon  the 
performances  of  prize  pupils,  while  the  work  of  teach- 
ing the  rudiments  to  the  general  mass  was  propor- 
tionately neglected,  he  proposed  a  capitation  grant, 
combined  with  payment  by  results.  Thus,  he  said, 
if  elementary  education  was  not  cheap,  it  would  be 
efficient ;  if  not  efficient,  it  would  be  cheap.  The 
epigram  was  ingenious,  and  the  phrase  "  payment  by 
results  "  succeeded  well.  But  Mr.  Lowe  soon  found,  as 
most  ministers  do  find  who  touch  education,  that  he  had 
raised  a  storm.  The  protests  of  "  born  educationalists," 
like  Sir  James  Kay-Shuttleworth  and  Mr.  Arnold, 
might  have  been  disregarded.  But  the  Conservative 
(Opposition,  who  were  very  strong  in  the  Parliament 
of  lSo9,  took  the  nuitter  up.  They  had  the  Church 
of  England  \)ehind  them,  and  the  Revised  Code  was 
itself  revised.      One-third   only   of   the   Government 


68  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

grant  was  given  for  attendance,  the  remaining  two- 
tliirds  being  awarded  only  after  examination.  Thus 
Mr.  Arnold,  who  had  from  the  first  attacked  the 
Revised  Code  as  too  mechanical,  achieved  at  least 
half  a  victory.  He  was  rather  afraid  of  losing  his 
place  for  writing  against  his  chiefs.  But  nothing 
happened  to  him,  and  Mr.  Lowe  himself  had  soon 
afterwards  to  resign. 

The  Creweian  Oration  at  Oxford,  which  accompanies 
the  bestowal  of  honorary  degrees,  is  delivered  alter- 
nately by  the  Public  Orator  and  the  Professor  of 
Poetry.  It  fell  to  Mr.  Arnold's  turn  in  1862,  when 
Lord  Palmerston  was  made  a  Doctor  of  Civil  Law. 
The  Prince  Consort  and  Lord  Canning  had  both  died 
within  the  year,  so  that  there  was  no  lack  of  topics 
for  this  annual  exercise  in  elegant  Latinity.  But 
Mr.  Arnold  did  not  coniine  himself  to  his  official  work 
and  his  Professorial  duties.  He  made  a  vigorous 
attack  upon  Bishop  Colenso's  book  on  the  Penta- 
teuch, which  gave  great  offence  to  many  of  his  Liberal 
friends.  The  article  was  published  in  Macmillari's 
Magazine  for  January  1863,  with  the  title  "The 
Bishop  and  the  Philosopher."  The  Philosopher  was 
Spinoza,  with  whom  few  Biblical  critics,  and  certainly 
not  Mr.  Arnold  himself,  could  be  favourably  com- 
pared. Bishop  Colenso's  book  has  long  been  forgotten, 
and  he  himself  is  remembered  rather  as  the  fearless 
champion  of  the  Zulus  than  as  the  corrector  of 
figures  in  the  Mosaic  record.  Mr.  Arnold  was, 
perhaps,  needlessly  severe  when  he  described  the 
Bishop  as  eliciting  a  "  titter  from  educated  Europe." 
But  it  was  true  that  his  arithmetical  computations 
neither  edified  the  many  nor  informed  the  few.    When 


v.]  THE   OXFORD   CHAIR  69 

Mr.  Disraeli  spoke  of  prelates  whose  study  of  theology 
commenced  after  they  had  grasped  the  crozier,  he  hit 
the  point.  These  absurdities  and  impossibilities  in 
Biblical  arithmetic  —  Colenso's  **  favourite  science,"  as 
Mr.  Arnold  called  it  —  were  not  new  to  the  learned 
world.  Xor  did  they  affect  the  questions  of  believing 
in  God  and  leading  a  good  life,  which  Spinoza,  a  lay 
saint,  considered  to  be  alone  essential.  In  the  follow- 
ing number  of  MacmiUan  Mr.  Arnold  at  once  served  a 
friend,  and  expressed  the  positive  side  of  his  theology, 
b}'  a  sympathetic  review  of  Stanley's  Lectures  on  the 
Jeicish  Church.  On  the  death  of  Thackeray,  which 
occurred  at  the  end  of  this  year,  Mr.  Arnold  pro- 
nounced him  not  to  be  a  great  writer.  This  is  a 
judgment  which,  coming  from  any  one  else,  Mr. 
Arnold  himself  would  have  called  saugrenu.  If 
Thackeray  was  not  a  great  writer,  no  English  novelist 
was  so.  Vanity  Fair,  Esmond,  Barry  Lyndon,  and 
the  first  volume  of  Pendennis  are  scarcely  to  be 
matched  in  English  fiction. 

Although  ]\Ir.  Arnold  was  sent  abroad  to  report  on 
primary  education  only,  he  also  contrived  to  see  some 
of  the  best  secondary  schools  in  France,  and  upon  his 
visits  to  them  he  founded  his  treatise  on  A  French 
Eton,  which  appeared  in  1864.  The  name  was  not 
very  ha])pily  chosen.  Mr.  Arnold  was  easily  con- 
victed by  ]Mr.  Stephen  ITa^vt^ey  of  not  understanding 
the  tutorial  system  at  Eton.  Nobody  understands  the 
tutorial  system  at  Eton  except  Eton  men,  and  they 
cannot  explain  it.  But  for  the  rest  the  book,  besides 
being  most  agreeably  written,  is  both  interesting  and 
important.  Mr.  Arnold's  French  Eton  is  the  Lyceum 
at  Toulouse,  which  he  rather  minutely  describes.     It 


70  MATTHEW  AENOLD  [chap. 

is,  or  was,  maintained  partly  by  the  State  and  partly 
by  the  Commune.  It  comprised  both  day-boys  and 
boarders;  there  were  scholarships  open  to  competi- 
tion, and,  by  way  of  a  conscience  clause,  there  was  a 
Protestant  minister  to  conduct  the  religious  teaching 
of  the  Protestant  pupils.  The  subjects  of  tuition, 
which  were  the  same  in  all  the  French  Lyceums,  dif- 
fered chiefly  from  what  was  then  taught  at  Eton  by 
including  science  and  French  grammar.  Science  is 
now  taught  in  all  the  public  schools  of  England. 
English  Grammar  is  still,  I  believe,  neglected.  No- 
body made  any  profit  out  of  these  Lyceums,  and  the 
terms  were  therefore  much  lower  than  in  our  public 
schools,  ranging  from  fifty  pounds  a  boarder  to  twenty 
pounds  a  day-boy.  It  is  a  misrepresentation  to  say 
that  Mr.  Arnold  compared  these  French  schools,  and 
their  too  systematic  routine,  with  Eton,  or  Harrow,  or 
his  own  Rugby.  He  contrasted  them  with  the  schools 
available  for  the  less  wealthy  portion  of  the  middle 
classes  in  England,  and,  in  spite  of  the  excellent  work 
since  done  by  the  Endowed  School  Commissioners,  he 
might  make  the  same  contrast  still.  Our  secondary 
education  is  still  the  weak  point  in  our  teaching,  and 
it  was  not  Mr.  Arnold's  fault  that  his  timely  counsels 
were  neglected. 

But  the  most  fascinating  part  of  a  delightful  book 
is  the  account  of  Lacordaire's  private  school  at  Sor- 
reze.  Here  the  payment  was  astonishingly  small, 
varying  from  five  to  fifteen  pounds  a  year.  Of  Lacor- 
daire  himself,  whom,  with  all  his  strictness,  his  pupils 
did  not  merely  respect  but  love,  Mr.  Arnold  paints  a 
charming  picture,  as  unlike  his  father  as  his  con- 
science  would  let  him.      The   conclusion  he  draws 


r.]  THE   OXFORD   CUAIR  71 

from  the  whole  matter  is  that  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand  will  not  suffice  for  education  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word.  "What  made  it,  according  to  his 
view,  more  efficient  in  France  than  in  England  was 
first  supervision,  and  secondly  publicity.  To  the 
familiiU'  maxim  that  the  State  had  better  leave  things 
alone  he  opposed  Burke's  definition  of  the  State  as 
beneficence  acting  by  rule.  From  Burke's  political 
philosophy  yiv.  Arnold  drew  most  of  his  owti  lessons 
in  politics,  and,  as  an  inspector  of  schools  appointed 
by  the  State,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  disbelieve 
in  the  sufficiency  of  private  enterprise.  So  far  as  ele- 
mentary education  was  concerned,  he  had  his  way. 
lie  lived  to  see  it  made  compulsory,  though  not  to  see 
it  made  free.  The  upper  and  middle  classes  were  left 
to  educate  themselves,  or  to  go  uneducated,  as  they 
pleased. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ESSA  YS  IN  CRITICISM 

Mr.  Arnold  was,  as  we  liave  seen,  elected  Professor 
of  Poetry  at  Oxford  in  1857.  The  election  was  for  a 
period  of  five  years,  but  in  accordance  with  custom  he 
was  re-elected  for  a  similar  term  in  18G2.  He  had 
more  than  justified  the  choice  of  the  university,  and 
his  literary  reputation  was  firmly  established.  At 
that  time  Mr.  Disraeli  was  Leader  of  the  Conservative 
party  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  at  the  very  height 
of  his  Parliamentary  powers.  No  politician  except 
Lord  Palmerston  had  then  more  influence  in  the 
country,  for  Mr.  Gladstone's  popularity  was  to  come, 
and  Lord  Derby's  never  came.  At  Aston  Clinton,  Sir 
Anthony  de  Rothschild's  house  in  Buckinghamshire, 
where  he  was  in  the  habit  of  staying,  Mr.  Arnold 
met  Mr.  Disraeli  on  the  27th  of  January  1864.  Mr. 
Disraeli  was  always  at  his  best  with  men  of  letters. 
He  sincerely  respected  them,  and  was  proud  to  be 
one  of  their  number.  On  this  occasion  he  was  very 
gracious  to  Mr.  Arnold.  "You  have  a  great  future 
before  you,"  he  said,  "  and  you  deserve  it."  He  then 
went  on  to  add  that  he  had  given  up  literature  because 
he  was  not  one  of  those  who  could  do  two  things  at 
once,  but  that  he  admired  most  the  men  like  Cicero, 
who  could.  Bishop  Wilberforce  was  another  guest, 
and  preached  the   next  day  a  sermon  which,  in  Mr. 

72 


CHAP.  VI.]  ESSA  YS  IX  CRITICISM  73 

Arnold's  opinion,  showed  him  to  have  no  "  real  power 
of  mind."  ''A  truly  emotional  spirit,"  Mr.  Arnold 
wrote  to  his  mother,  "he  undoubtedly  has,  beneath 
his  outside  of  society-haunting  and  men-pleasing,  and 
each  of  the  two  lives  he  leads  gives  him  the  more  ztt;!. 
for  the  other."  It  was  clearly  the  Bishop  from  whojii 
Mr.  Arnold  drew  the  type  that  "  make  the  best  of  boili 
worlds."  There  are  probably  few  who  would  deny 
that  he  correctly  estimated  "  the  great  lord  bishop  of 
England,"  as  Wilberforce's  satellites  liked  to  call  him, 
and  as  he  liked  to  be  called.  His  appreciation  of 
Tennyson,  on  the  other  hand,  was  utterly  inadequate. 
'•  I  do  not,"  he  wrote  to  ]\[r.  Dykes  Campbell  on  the 
22nd  of  September  18G4,  '•'!  do  not  think  Tennyson 
a  great  and  powerful  spirit  in  any  line,  as  Goethe  was 
in  the  line  of  modern  thought,  Wordsworth  in  that  of 
contemplation,  Byron  even  in  that  of  passion;  and 
unless  a  poet,  especially  a  poet  at  this  time  of  day, 
is  that,  my  interest  in  him  is  only  slight,  and  my 
conviction  that  he  will  not  finally  stand  high  is  firm." 
It  is  strange  that  any  critic  should  attribute  want  of 
sympathy  with  modern  thought  to  the  autlior  of 
In  Memoriam.  It  is  stranger  still  that  he  should 
consider  Byron  a  greater  poet  than  Tennyson.  But, 
for  some  reason  or  other,  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  appre- 
ciate his  English  contemporaries.  That  reason  was 
certainly  not  envy  or  jealousy,  for  of  such  feelings  he 
was  inca])able.  As  his  friend  Lord  Coleridge  said, 
they  "  withered  in  his  presence."  The  prejudice  did 
not  apjdy  to  foreigners.  He  idolised  Sainte-Beuve. 
Nor  was  it  strictly  confined  to  contemporaries.  He 
was  never  just  to  Shelley,  and  not  till  the  close  of  his 
life  to  Keats.     lie  seems  to  have  got  it  into  his  ln^ad 


74  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

tliat  Tennyson  was  being  "  run  "  against  Wordsworth, 
which  is  the  last  thing  that  Tennyson  himself  would 
have  desired.  But  it  is  true  that  forty  years  ago 
Tennyson  suffered  a  good  deal  from  injudicious  ad- 
mirers. His  3Iay  Queen,  and  Airy,  Fairy  Lilian 
were  extolled  as  gems  of  the  purest  water.  Rash, 
however,  as  this  indiscriminate  praise  may  have  been, 
it  should  not  have  prevented  Mr.  Arnold  from  admir- 
ing Tilhomis. 

Essays  in  Criticism  appeared  in  1865.  It  is  Mr. 
Arnold's  most  important  work  in  prose,  the  central 
book,  so  to  speak,  of  his  life.  Although  it  was  not  at 
first  widely  read,  it  made  an  immediate  and  a  pro- 
found impression  upon  competent  judges  of  literature. 
There  had  been  nothing  like  it  since  Hazlitt.  There 
has  been  nothing  like  it  since.  IMr.  Arnold's  judg- 
ments are  sometimes  eccentric,  and  the  place  which  he 
assigns  to  the  two  De  Guerins  is  altogether  out  of 
proportion.  But  the  value  of  Essays  in  Criticism  does 
not  depend  upon  this  or  that  isolated  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  its  author.  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  merely 
criticise  books  himself.  He  taught  others  how  to 
criticise  them.  He  laid  down  principles,  if  he  did  not 
always  keep  the  principles  he  laid  down.  Nobody, 
after  reading  Essays  in  Criticism,  has  any  excuse  for 
not  being  a  critic.  Mr.  Euskin  once  lamented  that 
he  had  made  a  great  number  of  entirely  foolish  people 
take  an  interest  in  art,  and  if  there  were  too  few 
critics  in  1865,  there  may  be  too  many  now.  But 
Mr.  Arnold  is  not  altogether  responsible  for  the 
quantity.  He  has  more  to  do  with  the  quality,  and 
the  quality  has  beyond  question  been  improved. 

The  famous  Preface  to  Essays  in  Criticism  was  in  the 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IX  ClilTICISM  75 

second  edition,  the  edition  of  18G9,  curtailed,  and, 
perhaps  wisely,  shorn  of  some  ephemeral  allusions. 
It  contains,  as  every  one  knows,  the  exquisite  address 
to  Oxford:  "beautiful  city,  so  venerable,  so  lovely,  so 
unravaged  by  the  fierce  intellectual  life  of  our  century, 
so  serene.-'  The  negative  part  of  this  praise  could 
hai-dly  be  given  now.  Even  in  I8G0  Oxford  was  not 
quite  so  free  from  intellectual  disturbances  as  in  Mr. 
Arnold's  undergraduate  days.  But  the  question  he 
asked  then  may  "be  asked  still:  '<And  yet,  steeped 
in  sentiment  as  she  lies,  spreading  her  gardens  to 
the  moonlight,  and  whispering  from  her  towers  the 
last  enchantments  of  the  Middle  Age,  who  will  deny 
that  Oxford,  by  her  ineffable  charm,  keeps  ever  calling 
us  nearer  to  the  true  goal  of  all  of  us,  to  the  ideal, 
to  perfection  —  to  beauty,  in  a  word,  which  is  only 
truth  seen  from  another  side,  —  nearer,  perhaps,  than 
all  the  science  of  Tubingen?"  Of  science,  in  the 
narrow  or  physical  sense,  Mr.  Arnold  knew  little  or 
nothing,  and  he  had  not  his  father's  love  of  history. 
But  of  the  old  Oxford  education,  literce  human  lores, 
there  have  been  few  finer  products.  Excellent,  in  a 
lighter  style,  is  his  apology  to  Mr.  Wright,  the  trans- 
lator of  Homer,  for  having  been  too  vivacious.  "  Yes, 
the  world  will  soon  be  the  Philistines' !  and  then  with 
every  voice,  not  of  thunder,  silenced,  and  the  whole 
earth  tilled  and  ennobled  every  morning  by  the 
magnificent  roaring  of  the  young  lions  of  the  iJaily 
Teleyrajjk,  we  shall  all  yawn  in  one  another's  faces 
with  the  dismallest,  the  most  unimpeachable  gravity." 
For  it  is  in  this  volume,  in  his  essay  on  Heine,  that 
Mr.  Arnold  first  uses  the  word  "Philistine,"  borrowed 
of  course  from  the  German,  and  it  jtlayed  afterwards 


76  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [chap. 

SO  large  a  part  in  his  philosophy,  that  the  passage 
may  as  well  be  quoted  in  full. 

"Philistinism!  —  we  have  not  the  expression  in 
English.  Perhaps  we  have  not  the  word  because  we 
have  so  much  of  the  thing.  At  Soli  I  imagine  they 
did  not  talk  of  Solecisms;  and  here,  at  the  very 
head-quarters  of  Goliath,  nobody  talks  of  Philistinism. 
The  French  have  adopted  the  term  eincier  (grocer),  to 
designate  the  sort  of  being  whom  the  Germans  desig- 
nate by  the  term  Philistine;  but  the  French  term  — 
besides  that  it  casts  a  slur  upon  a  respectable  class, 
composed  of  living  and  susceptible  members,  while  the 
original  Philistines  are  dead  and  buried  long  ago  —  is 
really,  I  think,  in  itself  much  less  apt  and  expressive 
than  the  German  term.  Efforts  have  been  made  to 
obtain  in  English  some  term  equivalent  to  Philister  or 
ipicier;  Mr.  Carlyle  has  made  several  such  efforts: 
'  respectability  with  its  thousand  gigs,'  he  says ;  well, 
the  occupant  of  every  one  of  these  gigs  is,  Mr.  Carlyle 
means,  a  Philistine.  However,  this  word  respectable 
is  far  too  valuable  a  word  to  be  thus  perverted  from 
its  proper  meaning;  if  the  English  are  ever  to  have  a 
word  for  the  thing  we  are  speaking  of  —  and  so  pro- 
digious are  the  changes  which  the  modern  spirit  is 
introducing,  that  even  we  English  shall,  perhaps,  one 
day  come  to  want  such  a  word  —  I  think  we  had  much 
better  take  the  term  Philistine  itself." 

The  Philistines  should,  perhaps,  have  been  intro- 
duced to  our  notice  in  the  first  essay,  which  deals 
with  the  function  of  criticism.  Here,  however,  we 
get  another  of  ]\Ir.  Arnold's  favourite  sentiments,  his 
worship  of  Burke.  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  say  a 
word  against  that  great  man  —  great  in  politics,  great 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IX  CRITICISM  11 

in  literature,  passionate  in  patriotism,  fertile  in  ideas. 
But  to  the  proposition  that  he  was  the  greatest  writer 
of  English  prose  I  respectfully  demur.  The  greatest 
writer  of  English  prose  is  Shakespeare.  I  do  not 
think  that  Burke  wrote  as  pure  English  as  his  com- 
patriot Goldsmith,  or  even  as  Swift.  Eloquent, 
massively  eloquent,  as  he  can  be,  he  does  not  in  my 
judgment  rise  to  the  level  of  Bacon,  or  Milton,  or 
Drydcn,  or  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  In  this  essay,  per- 
haps the  best  he  ever  wrote,  Mr.  Arnold  quotes  Burke's 
"return  upon  himself"  in  the  Thoughts  on  French 
Affairs,  as  one  of  the  finest  things  in  English  literature, 
and  yet  characteristically  un-English.  Well,  Burke 
was  not  an  Englishman.  He  was  an  Irishman,  and 
he  sometimes  indulged  in  the  "blind  hysterics  of  the 
Celt."  The  passage  here  quoted  by  ^Ir.  Arnold  is  a 
very  fine  one,  and  deserves  his  panegyric.  "If,"  says 
Burke,  "a  great  change  is  to  be  made  in  human 
affairs,  the  minds  of  men  will  be  fitted  to  it ;  the 
general  opinions  and  feelings  will  draw  that  way. 
Every  fear,  every  hope  will  forward  it,  and  then  they 
who  persist  in  opposing  this  mighty  current  in  human 
affairs  will  ap]»ear  rather  to  resist  the  decrees  of 
Providence  itself  than  the  mere  designs  of  men. 
They  will  not  be  resolute  and  firm,  but  perverse 
and  obstinate."  Mr.  Arnold,  in  citing  these  noble 
words,  written  in  December  1791,  has  fallen  into 
a  strange  historical  error.  He  calls  these  Thoughts 
on  French  Affairs  "  some  of  the  last  pages "  Burke 
"  ever  wrote."  Burke  died  in  1797.  The  Letter  to  a 
Noble  Lord  and  the  three  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace 
wore  written  in  179G.  He  was  past  returning  upon 
liimself  then.     Except  where  Ireland  was  concerned, 


78  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

the  French  Kevolution  had  made  him  incapable  of 
seeing  more  than  one  side  to  a  question.  The  British 
Constitution  had  always  been  his  idol.  He  forgot,  as 
Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  says,  that  nothing  human  is  sacred. 
The  first  principle  of  criticism  was,  said  Mr.  Arnold, 
disinterestedness.  This  end  was  to  be  attained  by 
"keeping  aloof  from  practice,"  by  a  free  play  of  the 
mind,  and  by  the  avoidance  of  ulterior  considerations, 
political,  social,  or  religious.  Two  of  these  rules  are 
negative,  as  indeed,  for  that  matter,  are  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments. The  third  is  vague.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Arnold  would  have  been  a  worse 
critic  if  he  had  written  more  poetry  after  he  was 
thirty-five.  And  he  certainly  did  not  agree  with 
Mark  Pattison  in  holding  that  the  man  who  wanted 
to  persuade  anybody  of  anything  was  not  a  man  of 
letters.  He  was  a  missionary,  almost  an  apostle,  the 
antagonist  of  Philistinism,  the  champion  of  sweetness 
and  light.  His  own  particular  criticisms  were  not 
always,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "  of  the  centre." 
His  great  and  distinguishing  merit  as  a  critic  was 
that  he  had  a  theory,  that  he  regarded  his  subject  as  a 
whole,  that  he  could  not  merely  give  reasons  for  his 
opinions,  but  show  that  they  were  something  more 
than  opinions,  that  they  were  the  deliberate  judgments 
of  a  trained  intelligence  working  upon  a  systematic 
order  of  ideas.  In  this  very  Essay  he  contrasts  the 
disinterestedness  of  French  with  the  partisanship  of 
English  critcism,  and  the  passage  is  important,  on 
more  grounds  than  one.  "  An  organ,"  he  says,  "  like 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  having  for  its  main 
function  to  understand  and  utter  the  best  that  is 
known  and  thought  in  the  world,  existing,  it  may  be 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IN  CRITICISM  79 

said,  as  just  an  organ  for  the  free  play  of  the  mind, 
we  have  not;  but  we  have  the  Edinburgh  Review,  exist- 
ing as  an  organ  of  the  Old  Whigs,  and  for  as  much 
play  of  the  mind  as  may  suit  its  being  that ;  we  have 
the  Quarterl'f  Jieview,  existing  as  an  organ  of  the  Tories, 
and  for  as  much  play  of  mind  as  may  suit  its  being 
that;  we  have  the  Brid'sh  Quatierhj  lievieic,  existing  as 
an  organ  of  the  political  Dissenters,  and  for  as  much 
play  of  mind  as  may  suit  its  being  that;  we  have  the 
Times,  existing  as  an  organ  of  the  common,  satisfied, 
well-to-do  Englishman,  and  for  as  much  play  of  mind 
as  may  suit  its  being  that."  Even  in  the  great  days 
of  M.  Buloz,  when  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  really 
was  the  first  literary-  organ  of  Europe,  it  was  too 
aristocratic  and  too  orthodox  to  deserve  the  praise  of 
jiure  intellectual  impartiality.  But  it  was  true  then, 
and,  with  qualifications,  it  is  true  now,  that  French 
magazines  and  newspapers  treat  literature  far  more 
seriously  than  our  own.  What  change  there  has  been 
since  18G5  on  this  side  of  the  Channel  is  all  for  the 
better,  and  is  due  to  no  man  so  much  as  to  Matthew 
Arnold.  But,  as  I  have  said,  I  quote  this  passage  for 
another  reason.  It  is  the  first  conspicuous  instance  of 
a  fault  which  grew  upon  ^Nlr.  Arnold  until  at  last  it 
almost  destroyed  the  pleasure  of  reading  his  prose. 
I  mean  the  trick  of  repetition.  Repetition  is  not 
always  a  vice.  Delicately  managed  by  great  writers, 
it  may  be  a  powerful  mode  of  heightening  rhetorical 
effect.  But  the  art  of  using  without  abusing  it  is  a 
very  difficult,  and  a  very  delicate  one.  Beautiful 
examples  of  it  may  be  found  in  the  Collects  of  the 
f^nglish  Church.  Take,  for  instance,  the  Collect  for 
St.  John  the  Evangelist's  Day:  — 


80  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

"  Merciful  Lord,  we  beseech  thee  to  cast  thy  bright 
beams  of  light  upon  thy  Church,  that  it,  being  en- 
lightened by  the  doctrine  of  thy  blessed  Apostle  and 
Evangelist  Saint  John,  may  so  walk  in  the  light  of 
thy  truth,  that  it  may  at  length  attain  to  the  light  of 
everlasting  life ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

Here  the  repetition  of  the  word  "light,"  with  the  still 
more  beautiful  repetition  of  the  word  "  charity"  in  the 
great  chapter  of  Corinthians,  is  a  real  artistic  merit.  It 
charms,  and  it  tells.  But  the  words  "  as  may  suit  its 
being  that "  have  no  attraction  or  distinction  of  any  kind. 
The  first  time  they  occur,  one  passes  them  over  without 
much  notice.  The  fourth  time  they  become  almost  in- 
tolerable. It  is  amazing  that  a  man  of  Mr.  Arnold's 
fastidious  taste  and  true  scholarship  should  not  have 
instinctively  avoided  so  paltry  a  device.  But  the  fact 
is  that  Mr.  Arnold  had  the  gift  of  seeing  his  own  faults 
without  seeing  that  they  were  his  own.  His  Essay 
on  the  Literary  Influence  of  Academies  i?,  a  most  brilliant 
and  entertaining  one,  much  better  worth  reading  than 
Swift's  on  the  same  subject.  He  attributes  to  Acade- 
mies the  power  of  saving  nations  from  the  "note  of 
provinciality."  Nowhere  is  Mr.  Arnold's  peculiar  gift 
of  urbane  and  humorous  persuasiveness  better  dis- 
played than  in  his  own  account  of  how  the  French 
Academy  was  founded  by  Eichelieu.  He  quotes  a 
sentence  from  Bossuet's  panegyric  of  St.  Paul,  hardly 
to  be  surpassed  for  eloquence  and  grandeur.  He  con- 
trasts it  with  some  rather  coarse  specimens  of  Burke 
and  Jeremy  Taylor  at  their  worst.  These,  he  says, 
are  provincial,  Bossuet's  prose  is  prose  of  the  centre. 
Very  likely  he  is  right.  Very  likely  an  academy,  if  it 
could  not  bring  us  all   up  to  the  level   of  Bossuet, 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IN  CRITICISM  81 

would  have  kept  great  English  writers  more  within 
bounds.  An  English  Academy  might,  as  Mr.  Arnold 
implies,  have  given  Addison  more  ideas.  Joubert 
might  have  had  fewer  ideas  if  there  had  been  no 
French  Academy.  Although  it  seems  to  me  paradoxi- 
cal, I  will  not  deny  it.  But  then  suddenly  one  lights, 
or  rather  stumbles,  upon  this  sentence.  "  In  short, 
where  there  is  no  centre  like  an  academy,  if  you  have 
genius  and  powerful  ideas,  yon  are  apt  not  to  have 
the  best  style  going ;  if  you  have  precision  of  style 
and  not  genius,  you  are  apt  not  to  have  the  best  ideas 
going."  Is  that  "  prose  of  the  centre "  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  tricky,  flashy,  provincial  ? 

Mr.  Arnold's  affection  for  Maurice  and  Eugenie  de 
Guerin,  that  hapless  brother  and  sister  who  excited 
the  sympathy  of  Sainte-Beuve,  is  almost  too  gentle 
and  touching  for  criticism.  And  his  favourite  quota- 
tion from  Maurice  de  Guerin's  Centaure  has  no  doubt  a 
singular  charm.  But  when  it  comes  to  saying  that 
the  talent  of  this  j'oung  Frenchman,  now  almost  for- 
gotten in  his  own  country,  had  "more  of  distinction 
and  power  than  the  talent  of  Keats,"  the  English 
reader  must  feel  that  if  this  is  to  be  "  central,"  pro- 
vinciality has  its  consolations.  But  indeed,  Mr. 
Arnold's  reputation  would  have  stood  higher  if  lie  had 
left  Keats  alone.  He  cannot  even  quote  hiin  correctly. 
Keats  did  not  write,  as  in  the  essay  on  Maurice  de 
Gudrin  Mr.  Arnold  makes  him  write, 

"moving  waters  at  their  priestlike  ta.sk 
Of  cold  ablution  round  Karth's  human  shores." 

He  wrote  pure  ablution.     What  a  difference !     How 
tame  and  awkward  is  tlie  one;  how  supremely  perfect 
u 


82  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

is  the  other !  Matthew  Arnold's  avowed  master  in 
criticism  was  Sainte-Beuve.  He  could  hardly  have 
had  a  better.  The  doctrine  of  disinterestedness  is 
undoubtedly  Sainte-Beuve's,  and  may  be  found  at 
the  beginning  of  the  essay  on  Mademoiselle  de 
I'Espinasse :  — 

"  Le  critique  ne  doit  point  avoir  de  partialite  et  n'est 
d'aucune  coterie.  II  n'epouse  les  gens  que  par  un 
temps,  et  ne  fait  que  traverser  les  groupes  divers  sans 
s'y  enchainer  jamais.  II  passe  resolument  d'un  camp 
a  I'autre;  et  de  ce  qu'il  a  rendu  justice  d'un  cote  ce  ne 
lui  est  jamais  une  raison  de  la  refuser  a  ce  qui  est 
vis-a-vis.  Ainsi,  tour  a  tour,  il  est  a  Eome  ou  a 
Carthage,  tantot  pour  Argos  et  tantot  pour  Ilion." 
— "  The  critic  ought  not  to  be  partial,  and  has  no 
set.  He  takes  up  people  only  for  a  time,  and 
does  no  more  than  pass  through  different  groups 
without  ever  chaining  himself  down.  He  passes  firm- 
ly from  one  camp  to  the  other;  and  never,  because 
he  has  done  justice  to  one  side,  refuses  the  same  to 
the  opposite  party.  Thus,  turn  by  turn,  he  is  at 
Rome  and  at  Carthage,  sometimes  for  Argos,  and 
sometimes  for  Troy." 

"Tros  Tyriusqiie  mihi  nullo  discrimine  agetur." 

But  if  it  was  to  Sainte-Beuve,  and  not  to  George 
Sand,  that  Mr.  Arnold  owed  his  excessive  fondness 
for  the  De  Guerins,  the  benefit  was  a  doubtful  one. 
They  fill,  as  Mr.  Saintsbury  says,  too  large  a  space  in 
a  volume  which  contains  such  subjects  as  Heine, 
Spinoza,  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  Mr.  Arnold,  if  I  may 
say  so,  carried  too  far  his  belief,  sound  enough  so  far 
as  it  goes,  in  the  superiority  of  French  prose  to  Trench 


Ti.]  ESSAYS  IX  ClilTICISyr  83 

verse.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  for  an  Englishman  to 
appreciate  French  Alexandrines,  unless,  like  Gibbon, 
he  be  half  a  Frenchman  himself.  But  it  is  rash  for  a 
foreigner  to  say  that  the  metre  of  Racine  is  inade- 
quate, and  the  verse  of  the  PhMre  not  a  vehicle  for 
*'  high  poetry."  And  what  of  this  couplet  from 
Victor  Hugo  ? 

'•  Et  la  Seine  fuyait  avec  un  triste  bruit, 
Sous  ce  grand  chevalier  du  gouffre  et  de  la  nuit." 

^Ir.  Arnold  disliked  Alexandrines  as  he  disliked  the 
"  heroic  '"  couplets  of  Pope.  But  then,  these  personal 
distastes  are,  as  he  has  himself  taught  us,  eccentricities, 
which  criticism  rejects  as  irrelevant.  That  "Addison 
has  in  his  prose  an  intrinsically  better  vehicle  for  his 
genius  than  Pope  in  his  couplet "  is  not  a  self-evident 
proposition.  It  must  be  proved,  and  Mr.  Arnold  makes 
no  attempt  to  prove  it.  "  Pope,  in  his  Essay  on  Man," 
says  Mr.  Arnold,  is  *'  thus  at  a  disadvantage  compared 
with  Lucretius  in  his  poem  on  Nature :  Lucretius  has 
an  adequate  vehicle,  Pope  has  not.  Xay,  though 
Pope's  genius  for  didactic  poetry  was  not  less  than 
that  of  Horace,  while  his  satirical  power  was  certainly 
greater,  still  one's  taste  receives,  I  cannot  but  think, 
a  certain  satisfaction  when  one  reads  the  Epistles  and 
Saiires  of  Horace,  which  it  fails  to  receive  when  one 
reads  the  ^Satires  and  Epistles  of  I'ope."  Surely  this 
is  parado.xical,  if  not  perverse.  That  Lucretius  was 
a  far  greater  poet  than  Pope  few  would,  I  suppose, 
deny,  and  his  best  hexameters  are  hardly  equalled  even 
by  Virgil's.  But  few  and  far  between  are  the  poetical 
lines,  such  as 

*'  Gra;cia  barbariit  lento  coUisa  duello  " 


84  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

in  the  Satires  and  Epistles  of  Horace.  Horace  wrote 
them  in  a  professedly  prose  style  (pedestris  sermo)  not 
in  poetic  form,  and  to  an  ordinary  ear  his  numbers 
(I  am  not,  of  course,  referring  to  the  Odes)  are  far  less 
tuneful  than  Pope's.  Strange,  too,  almost  grotesque, 
is  the  judgment  that  Shelley  had  neither  intellectual 
force  enough,  nor  culture  enough,  to  master  the  use 
of  words.  Was  it  not  this  Shelley  who  wrote  the 
''  Adonais,"  and  the  "  Ode  to  the  West  Wind  "  ?  The 
comparison  of  Mademoiselle  de  Guerin  with  Miss 
Emma  Tatham  is  rather  below  Mr.  Arnold.  Poor 
Miss  Tatham  and  her  "union  in  church-fellowship 
with  the  worshippers  at  Hawley  Square  Chapel,  ]\Iar- 
gate,"  might  have  been  allowed  to  rest  in  peace.  It  is 
never  worth  while  to  sneer  at  other  people's  religion, 
even  for  the  pleasure  of  contrasting  Margate  with 
Languedoc. 

The  essay  on  Heine,  from  which  I  have  already 
quoted  the  famous  passage  about  the  Philistines,  con- 
tains also  a  definition  of  poetry  as  "  the  most  beautiful, 
impressive,  and  widely  effective  mode  of  saying 
things."  Perhaps  this  is  a  description  rather  than  a 
definition,  and  perhaps,  on  Mr.  Arnold's  own  showing, 
it  would  not  apply  to  the  French  language.  But  as 
a  general  truth  it  is  striking,  and  it  is  justified  by  the 
experience  of  mankind.  In  this  same  essay,  how- 
ever, he  broaches  almost,  if  not  quite,  for  the  first 
time  his  theory  of  class,  which  led  him  altogether 
astray.  Caste  is  a  reality.  Class  is  a  fiction.  To 
make  classes  real  it  would  be  necessary  to  prohibit 
intermarriage,  or  rather  it  would  have  been  necessary 
to  do  so  centuries  ago.  Even  then  there  would  still 
be,  as  Sam  Slick  says,  a  great  deal  of  human  nature  in 


▼I.]  ESSAYS  IX  ClilTICISM  86 

people.  "Aristocracies,"  ^Iv.  Arnold  tells  us,  "are,  as 
such,  naturally  impenetrable  by  ideas;  but  their  in- 
dividual members  have  high  courage  and  a  turn  for 
breaking  bounds;  and  a  man  of  genius,  who  is  the 
born  child  of  the  idea,  happening  to  be  born  in  the 
aristocratic  ranks,  chafes  against  the  obstacles  which 
prevent  him  from  fully  developing  it."  All  this  is 
very  fanciful.  Byron  and  Shelley  were  "  members  of 
the  aristocratic  class."  "What  then  ?  Tliey  were  Byron 
and  Shelley.  They  were  as  unlike  each  other  as  two 
contemporary  Englishmen  could  well  be.  Byron  was 
childishly  and  vulgarly  proud  of  his  social  position. 
Shelley  cared  no  more  for  it  than  he  cared  for  the 
binomial  theorem.  The  Scottish  peasantry  are  not 
naturally  impenetrable  to  ideas.  But  Burns  chafed 
against  the  obstacles  which  prevented  him  from  fully 
developing  his  genius,  and  if,  as  somebody  said,  Byron 
was  a  Harrow  boy.  Burns  was  a  plough  boy.  The  per- 
centage of  impenetrability  to  ideas  is  probably  much 
the  same  in  one  class  as  in  another.  Mr.  Arnold 
pronounces  Heine's  weakness  to  have  been,  not  as 
Goethe  said,  deficiency  in  love,  but  "deficiency  in 
self-respect,  in  true  dignity  of  character."  But  this  is 
not  literary  criticism,  and  to  Heine's  literary  great- 
ness no  man  has  paid  more  sympathetic  homage  than 
Matthew  Arnold. 

The  essay  on  "Pagan  and  Mediaeval  Eeligious 
Sentiment"  is  best  known  by  the  charming  transla- 
tion from  the  fifteenth  Idyll  of  Theocritus  which  it 
contains.  But  the  essay  has  other,  and  perhaps  higher, 
merits  than  this.  Gorgo  and  Praxinoe  are  indeed  de- 
lightfully natural  characters.  The  Hymn  to  Adonis  is 
a  beautiful  and  highly  finished  piece  of  composition. 


86  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

But  Theocritus  was  pre-eminently  the  poet  of  passion 
and  of  nature.  This  satirical  sketch  of  town  life 
is  one  of  the  least  Theocritean  things  in  him.  It  is, 
however,  admirably  suited  to  Mr.  Arnold's  purpose, 
which  was  to  contrast  Paganism  with  Medisevalism, 
Theocritus  with  St.  Francis.  Side  by  side  with  the 
Hymn  to  Adonis  he  sets  the  Canticle  of  St.  Francis, 
and  thus  he  comments  upon  them. 

"Now,  the  poetry  of  Theocritus's  hymn  is  poetry 
treating  the  world  according  to  the  demand  of  the 
senses ;  the  poetry  of  St.  Francis's  hymn  is  poetry 
treating  the  world  according  to  the  demand  of  the 
heart  and  imagination.  The  first  takes  the  Avorld 
by  its  outward,  sensible  side;  the  second  by  its  in- 
ward, symbolical  side.  The  first  admits  as  much  of 
the  world  as  is  pleasure-giving;  the  second  admits 
the  whole  world,  rough  and  smooth,  painful  and 
pleasure-giving,  all  alike,  but  all  transfigured  by  the 
power  of  a  spiritual  emotion,  all  brought  under  a  law 
of  supersensual  love,  having  its  seat  in  the  soul." 

That  is  Matthew  Arnold,  as  it  seems  to  me,  at  his 
very  best.  Admirable  also  is  this :  —  "I  wish  to 
decide  nothing  as  of  my  own  authority;  the  great 
art  of  criticism  is  to  get  oneself  out  of  the  way  and 
to  let  humanity  decide."  But  at  the  close  of  the 
essay  he  strikes  a  lower  note,  he  almost  touches  slang. 
After  a  fine  translation  of  a  noble  passage  in  Soph- 
ocles, he  says,  "  Let  St.  Francis  —  nay,  or  Luther 
either  —  beat  that ! "  This  is  not  a  dignified  finale  to 
a  classical  piece. 

The  essay  on  Joubert  is  one  of  Mr.  Arnold's  most 
charming  and  most  characteristic  studies.  Joubert  is 
not,  perhaps — indeed  Mr.  Arnold  admits  it  —  a  great 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IX  CRITICISM  87 

writer.  But  he  is  a  most  subtle  and  suggestive  one. 
lie  is  also  one  whom  few  English  readers  would  have 
found  out  for  themselves,  and  is  therefore  very  well 
suited  for  the  sort  of  essay  in  which  Matthew  Arnold 
shone.  The  comparison  with  Coleridge,  through  strik- 
ing and  brilliant,  is  not  very  fruitful,  for  it  is  rather 
a  contrast  than  a  parallel.  The  translations  from 
Joubert's  TJiouyhts,  exquisitely  felicitous  as  they  are, 
seem  to  me  too  paraphrastic,  too  far  from  the  original. 
The  rich  excellence  of  this  essay  lies  in  its  description 
of  Joubert's  character,  and  of  the  intellectual  atmos- 
phere in  which  he  lived.  There  is  a  good  deal  in 
Joubert,  whose  life  covered  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  more  like  Newman  than  Coleridge. 
This,  for  instance:  "Do  not  bring  into  the  domain  of 
reasoning  that  which  belongs  to  our  innermost  feeling. 
State  truths  of  sentiment,  and  do  not  try  to  prove 
them.  There  is  a  danger  in  such  proofs,  for  in  argu- 
ing it  is  necessary  to  treat  that  which  is  in  question  as 
something  problematic :  now  that  which  we  accustom 
ourselves  to  treat  as  problematic,  ends  by  appearing 
to  us  as  really  doubtful.  .  .  .  '  Fear  God '  has  made 
many  men  pious ;  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God 
have  made  many  men  atheists."  There  is  a  passage  in 
the  Grammar  of  Assent  which  may  well  h*ve  been 
suggested  by  that.  Joubert  is  not,  and  never  could 
be,  a  popular  author,  and  much  of  his  pecidiar  aroma 
cannot  be  jjreserved  in  translation.  Uut  of  religious 
sentiment,  as  distinguished  from  theological  dogma, 
there  have  been  few  such  fascinating  teachers,  and 
this  no  doubt  it  was,  not  merely  tlie  praise  of  Sainte- 
Beuve,  which  recommended  him  to  Matthew  Arnold. 
Those  who  deny  the  possibility  of  undogmatic  Chris- 


88  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

tiaiiity  must,   among  other  things,  explain  Joubert 
away. 

The  two  strictly  philosophical  essays  are  devoted  re- 
spectively to  Spinoza  and  to  Marcus  Aurelius.  Yov  the 
essay  on  Joubert  is  more  than  half  literary,  while  the 
others  are  literature  pure  and  simple.  Of  Matthew 
Arnold  as  a  philosopher  it  may  be  said  that,  though 
clear,  he  was  not  deep,  and  that  though  gentle,  he  was 
not  dull.  He  abhorred  pedantry  so  much  that  he  shrank 
from  system,  but  he  always  had  a  keen  insight  into  his 
author's  meaning,  and  he  was  a  master  of  lucid  ex- 
position. His  account  of  Baruch,  or  Benedict,  Spinoza, 
cast  out  of  the  Portuguese  synagogue  at  Amsterdam 
with  a  curse  that  Ernulphus  might  have  envied,  is 
singularly  attractive,  as  indeed  is  the  man  himself. 
Expelled  by  the  Jews,  Spinoza  never  became  a  Chris- 
tian. But  in  his  life  he  was  faultless,  and  no  man 
better  fulfilled  the  injunction  of  the  prophet  Micah, 
"  Do  justice  and  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God."  Although  he  laboured,  like  so  many  pro- 
foundly religious  men,  under  the  imputation  of  atheism, 
he  was  really,  as  Goethe  said  of  him,  "  Gott-betrunken," 
intoxicated  with  the  divine  nature,  which  he  felt  around 
him  as  well  as  above  him.  The  Bible,  that  is  to  say 
the  Old  Testament,  was  his  favourite  book,  and  the 
subject  of  his  constant  study.  He  was  the  first  and 
greatest  of  Biblical  critics  in  the  free,  modern  sense 
of  the  term.  Being,  of  course,  a  Hebrew  scholar,  and 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  Oriental  modes  of  expres- 
sion, he  readily  perceived,  even  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  that  many  scriptural  stories  which  popular 
theology  even  now  regards  as  miraculous  were  not 
so  intended  by  those  who  wrote  them.     Mr.  Arnold 


VI.]  ESSAYS  IX  CRTTICISM  89 

does  not  deal  -vnth  Spinoza's  ethics.  They  go  deeper 
than  he  cared  to  penetrate.  But  he  gives  an  excellent 
summary  of  the  Tradatus  Theoloyko-Politkus,  a,tvea.t\se 
on  Church  and  State.  That  grand  old  text,  "  Where 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty,"  illustrates 
at  once  the  politics  and  the  theology  of  Spinoza. 
When  Mr.  Arnold  wrote,  the  only  English  transla- 
tion of  Spinoza,  who  composed  in  Latin,  was  almost 
incredibly  bad.  There  is  now  a  remarkably  good  one 
by  the  late  Mr.  Kobert  Elwes  of  Corpus  Christi  Col- 
lege, Oxford. 

Of  ]\Larcus  Aurelius  IMr.  Arnold  was  a  devotee.  And 
indeed  there  are  few  nobler  figures  in  history  than  this 
humble  and  pious  man  who,  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
Roman  Empire  when  the  Koman  Empire  was  co-exten- 
sive with  the  civilised  world,  wrote  his  imperishable 
maxims  of  morality  in  the  intervals  of  his  Dacian  cam- 
paigns. It  is  true  that  he  persecuted  the  Christians. 
Polycarp  of  Smyrna  suffered  under  him.  ]?ut,  as  IVFr. 
Arnold  says,  he  did  it  in  ignorance.  He  died  in  180, 
and  never  saw  the  Sermon  on  the  jMount,  or  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John.  In  his  Meditations  he  never  speaks  of  the 
Christians  at  all.  He  knew  nothing  about  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ,  which  would  have  interested  him  so  pro- 
foundly. Like  Tacitus  a  century  earlier,  he  regarded 
the  Christians  as  an  obscure  sect  of  the  Jews,  morose 
fanatics,  despisers  of  law  and  reason,  enemies  of  the 
human  race.  Constantine  in  the  next  century  dis- 
covered the  truth,  and  became  a  Christian.  But 
Marcus  Aurelius  was  an  infinitely  better  man  than 
Constantine.  In  him  we  have  Pagan  morality  at  the 
highest  point  it  ever  attained,  as  in  Petronius  we  have 
it  at  the  lowest.     No  comparison  between  Christianity 


90  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap.  vi. 

and  Paganism  can  be  fair  which,  rejects  either  one  of 
these  pictures  or  the  other.  The  world,  said  Plato, 
would  never  be  perfect  until  kings  became  philoso- 
phers, or  philosophers  became  kings.  The  world  is 
not  likely  ever  to  be  perfect.  But  Marcus  was  a  true 
philosopher  on  a  throne.  He  was  a  real  Stoic,  yet  with 
something  strangely  like  Christian  humility,  which  the 
Stoics  altogether  lacked.  He  "  remains,"  says  Mr. 
Arnold,  "the  especial  friend  and  comforter  of  all 
clear-headed  and  scrupulous,  yet  pure-hearted  and 
upward-striving  men,  in  those  ages  most  especially 
that  walk  by  sight,  not  by  faith,  and  yet  have  no  open 
vision :  he  cannot  give  such  souls,  perhaps,  all  they 
yearn  for,  but  he  gives  them  much ;  and  what  he  gives 
them  they  can  receive."  The  Greek  of  JNIarcus  Aurelius 
is  hard  and  crabbed  —  the  Greek  of  a  Roman,  Even 
scholars  will  be  glad  to  read  him  in  the  accurate,  if  not 
very  elegant,  version  of  Mr.  Long.  He  owed  much, 
perhaps  more  than  Mr.  Arnold  allows,  to  Epictetus, 
and  he  gratefully  acknowledges  his  debt.  Epictetus 
was  a  slave.  At  the  opposite  ends  of  the  long  ladder 
which  made  up  Roman  civilisation  before  Christianity 
became  the  faith  of  the  Roman  Empire,  these  two 
great  men  are  inseparably  connected  by  affinity  of 
soul.  "  The  idea  of  a  polity,"  wrote  the  Emperor, 
"  in  which  there  is  the  same  law  for  all,  a  polity 
administered  with  regard  to  equal  rights  and  equal 
freedom  of  speech,  and  the  idea  of  a  kingly  govern- 
ment which  respects  most  of  all  the  freedom  of  the 
governed."  This  ideal  was  very  imperfectly  realised 
in  the  Roman  State.  But  is  it  perfectly  realised 
now? 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  EXD  OF  THE  PROFESSORSHIP 

Mr.  Arxold  held  the  Professorship  of  Poetry  at 
Oxford  for  ten  years,  from  1857  to  1867.  He  was 
twice  elected  for  periods  of  five  years  each.  But  for 
him,  as  for  the  President  of  the  United  States,  a  third 
term  was  impossible.  In  18G7  he  retired,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Sir  Francis  Doyle,  author  of  that  noble 
poem  "The  Return  of  the  Guards,"  that  justly  popu- 
lar poem  "  The  Private  of  the  Buffs,"  and  "  The  Don- 
caster  St.  Leger,"  the  best  description  of  a  horse-race 
ever  written  in  English  verse.  There  were  parts  of 
Mr.  Arnold's  professorial  duties,  such  as  reading  the 
Creweian  Oration  and  examining  for  the  Newdigate, 
which  he  heartily  disliked.  But,  on  the  whole,  the 
position  gave  him  great  pleasure,  and  he  laid  it  down 
with  sincere  regret.  He  was  anxious  that  Mr.  Brown- 
ing should  succeed  him.  Mr.  Browning,  however,  was 
not  an  Oxford  man,  and  though  an  honorary  ISIaster's 
Degree  had  been  conferred  upon  him,  the  objection 
was  held  to  be  fatal. 

The  Chair  of  Poetry  is  not  an  exhausting  buidcn, 
and  all  the  time  he  held  it  ^Er.  Arnold  was  zealously 
fullilling  his  duty  to  the  Department  of  Education. 
In  I8G0  he  undertook  another  of  those  Continental 
investigations  which  lie  so  thoroughly  enjoyed.  The 
Schools  Inquiry  Commissioners  charged  him  with  the 

HI 


92  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

agreeable  task  —  agreeable  at  least  to  him  —  of  report- 
ing upon  the  system  of  teaching  for  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  which  prevailed  in  France,  Italy, 
Germany,  and  Switzerland.  At  the  beginning  of 
April  he  left  London  for  Paris,  where  he  began  his 
work.  In  Paris  he  met  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
who  might  almost  have  walked  out  of  Martin  CJmzzlewit. 
Such  are  scarcely  to  be  found  now.  ''I  have  just 
seen,"  he  writes  to  his  mother  on  the  1st  of  May,  "  an 
American,  a  great  admirer  of  mine,  who  says  that  the 
three  people  he  wanted  to  see  in  Europe  were  Janies 
Martineau,  Herbert  Spencer,  and  myself.  His  talk 
was  not  as  our  talk,  but  he  was  a  good  man."  The 
last  touch  is  characteristically  and  ironically  urbane. 
At  this  time,  seven  years  after  "Merope,"  appeared 
"Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  which  proved  as  popular  as 
"  Merope "  was  the  reverse.  It  did  not,  however, 
satisfy  Mr.  Arnold,  and  in  a  critical  letter  to  Professor 
Conington,  dated  the  17th  of  May,  be  thus  speaks  of 
it :  —  "  The  moderns  will  only  have  the  antique  on  the 
condition  of  making  it  more  beautiful  (according  to 
their  own  notions  of  beauty)  than  the  antique  —  i.e. 
something  wholly  different."  This  is  just  criticism 
so  far  as  it  goes.  "  Atalanta  "  is  not  Greek.  It  is  far 
too  violent  and  impulsive  to  be  Greek.  But  its  mag- 
nificent verses,  with  their  rush  and  ring,  their  surge 
and  flow,  will  always  raise  the  spirits  and  charm  the 
ear.  Conington,  a  profoundly  learned  man,  but  a 
pedant  if  ever  there  was  one,  was  also,  it  seems,  a 
great  admirer  of  *'  Merope."  He  must  have  taken  it 
with  him  to  the  grave,  for  it  died  long  before  its  author. 
Mr.  Arnold  did  not  enjoy  Italy  so  much  as  he  might 
have  done  if  he  had  known  more  about  architecture 


Yii.]  THE  END   OF  THE   PROFESSORSHIP  93 

and  painting.  But  he  was  a  keen  critic  of  national 
character,  and  being  at  Florence  just  after  Florence 
had  become,  for  a  short  lime,  the  capital  of  Italy,  he 
saw  in  a  moment  the  weak  point  of  the  modern  Italians. 
"They  imitate  the  French  too  much,"  he  wrote  to 
his  mother  on  the  24th  of  May.  "  It  is  good  for  us 
to  attend  to  the  French,  they  are  so  unlike  us,  l)ut 
not  good  for  the  Italians,  who  are  a  sister  nation." 
Luminous  ideas  of  this  kind  light  up  the  not  very 
brilliant  atmosphere  of  ^[r.  Arnold's  correspondence, 
most  of  which  he  dashed  off  at  odd  moments,  without 
having  any  special  turn  for  the  art.  We  could  well 
have  spared  his  comparison  between  the  sham,  gim- 
crack  cathedral  at  ^Milan,  which  contains  half  a  dozen 
more  beautifid  churches,  and  the  great  Duomo  at 
Florence,  with  the  cupola  of  Brunelleschi,  unequalled 
in  the  world.  But  the  fascination  of  Italy  overcame 
Mr.  Arnold  at  last,  for  on  the  12th  of  September  he 
wrote  from  Dresden  to  Mr.  Slade,  that  "all  time 
passed  in  touring  anywhere  in  "Western  Europe, 
except  Italy,  seemed  to  him,  with  his  present  lights, 
time  misspent,"  and  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever 
changed  this  opinion. 

Mr.  Arnold  was  at  Zurich  in  October  1865,  when 
he  heard  of  Lord  Palmerston's  death.  Palmerston, 
though  an  aristocrat,  as  this  word  is  generally  under- 
stood, had  none  of  the  cosmopolitan  culture  which 
aristocracies  are  supposed  to  affect.  He  was  as  typical 
an  Englishman  as  I^)riglit  or  Cobden,  far  too  typical 
for  Mr.  Arnold's  ta.ste.  I'ut  with  some  allowance  for 
personal  prejudice,  the  following  extract  from  ^Mr. 
Arnold's  letter  to  his  mother  on  Palmerston's  career 
has  truth  as  well  as  point  in  it.     "  I  do  not  deny  his 


94  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

popular  personal  qualities,  but  as  to  calling  liim  a 
great  Minister  like  Pitt,  Walpole,  and  Peel,  and 
talking  of  his  death  as  a  national  calamity,  why, 
taking  his  career  from  1830,  when  his  importance 
really  begins,  to  the  present  time,  he  found  his 
country  the  first  power  in  the  world's  estimation, 
and  he  leaves  it  the  third ;  of  this,  no  person  with 
eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear,  and  opportunities  for 
using  them,  can  doubt;  it  may  even  be  doubted 
whether,  thanks  to  Bismarck's  audacity,  resolution, 
and  success,  Prussia  too,  as  well  as  Prance  and  the 
United  States,  does  not  come  before  England  at  pres- 
ent in  general  respect."  This  contemporary  judg- 
ment of  a  calm  observer,  whose  political  opinions 
were  those  of  an  independent  Whig,  may  be  com- 
mended to  believers  in  the  Palmerstonian  legend. 
Matthew  Arnold  was  the  best  of  sons,  and  the  allu- 
sions to  his  father  in  his  letters  to  his  mother,  are 
really  a  more  affectionate  form  of  the  feeling  which 
prompted  Frederick  the  Great's  filial  presents  of 
gigantic  grenadiers.  Thus,  on  the  18th  of  ISTovember 
1865,  after  reading  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke's  excellent 
Life  of  Frederick  Ilohertson,  he  writes:  "It  is  a  mis- 
take to  put  him  with  papa,  as  the  Spectator  does : 
papa's  greatness  consists  in  his  bringing  such  a 
torrent  of  freshness  into  English  religion  by  placing 
history  and  politics  in  connection  with  it ;  Robertson's 
is  a  mere  religous  biography,  but  as  a  religious  biogra- 
phy it  is  deeply  interesting."  Mr.  Arnold  was,  of 
course,  before  all  things  a  man  of  letters,  and  of  physi- 
cal science  he  knew  little  or  nothing.  It  is,  therefore, 
an  interesting  proof  of  his  mental  width  that  he  should 
have  strongly  recommended  to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Forster, 


VII.]  TUE  END  OF  THE  PROFESSORSHIP  95 

science,  especially  botany,  as  better  suited  to  cultivate 
perception  in  a  child  tlian  grammar  or  matliematics. 
Perhaps  he  felt  the  want  of  scieutitic  training  himself. 
But  he  was  intensely  practical,  and  did  his  othcial 
work  far  more  efficiently  than  many  drudges  who  never 
wrote  a  verse.  Just  before  Lord  Russell's  Govern- 
ment resigned  in  18G6,  he  applied  for  a  Commissioner- 
ship  of  Charities.  It  would,  as  he  told  his  mother, 
have  given  him  another  three  hundred  a  year,  and  an 
independent  instead  of  a  subordinate  position.  No 
man  in  England  was  better  qualitied  for  it.  His  views 
on  charitable  endowments  were,  as  almost  every  one 
would  now  admit,  thoroughly  wise,  enlightened,  and 
sound.  But  the  post  was  wanted  for  a  lawyer,  and 
lawyers,  in  this  country,  are  made  everything  except 
judges.  The  appointment  was  Lord  Russell's,  and 
Lord  Russell,  as  we  know,  was  one  of  Mr.  Arnold's 
earliest  admirers.  Mr.  Gladstone,  however,  had  para- 
mount influence,  and  it  is  said  that  he  had  already 
discovered  the  theological  heterodoxy  wliich  after- 
wards became  patent  to  the  vulgar  eye.  It  is  almost 
inconceivable  nowadays  that  such  an  argument  should 
have  weighed  Avith  a  Minister  filling  a  purely  secular 
place.  Mr.  Arnold's  failure  was  a  disaster  to  the  pub- 
lic service,  and  may  almost  be  called  a  scandal.  He 
was  also  unsuccessful  in  the  following  year,  when 
he  applied  for  the  post  of  Librarian  to  the  House  of 
Commons.  His  application  was  supported  by  ^Ir. 
Disraeli,  the  leader  of  the  House,  and  by  many  other 
distinguished  persons.  But  Speaker  Denison  had 
determined  to  carry  out  one  of  tliose  mysterious 
rearrangements  in  which  the  great  functioiuirios  of 
I'arliament  delight,  and  this  particular  plan  involved 


96  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

the  elevation  of  the  Sub-Librarian,  a  thoroughly  com- 
petent man.  In  this  case  Mr.  Arnold's  success  would 
have  been  a  public  misfortune,  for  it  would  have 
withdrawn  him  from  work  of  the  greatest  value,  and 
laid  him,  for  all  practical  purposes,  on  the  shelf. 

Mr.  Arnold's  last  lectures  as  Professor  of  Poetry- 
were  devoted  to  the  study  of  Celtic  Literature.  They 
were  four  in  number,  and  were  successively  published 
after  delivery  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine.  In  1867, 
when  Mr.  Arnold  retired  from  the  Chair,  they  were 
reprinted  in  a  small  volume.  Mr.  George  Smith,  the 
great  publisher,  remarked  that  it  was  not  exactly  the 
sort  of  book  which  Paterfamilias  would  buy  at  a  book- 
stall, and  take  down  to  his  Jemima.  I  should  be  sorry 
to  suggest  that  Mr.  Smith  did  not  get  further  than  the 
title,  to  which  his  remark  would  apply.  But  no  title 
was  ever  more  misleading,  and  few  books  are  easier  to 
read.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  brilliantly  audacious 
of  all  Mr.  Arnold's  performances.  Mr.  Gladstone 
wrote  a  book  on  the  Bible  without  knowing  a  word 
of  Hebrew.  Matthew  Arnold  wrote,  not  indeed  on 
Celtic  literature,  but  on  the  study  of  it,  in  happy  and 
contented  ignorance  of  Gaelic,  Erse,  and  Cymry.  Only 
men  of  genius  can  do  these  things.  Upon  the  real 
nature  and  value  of  Celtic  literature  these  charming 
pages  throw  little,  if  any,  light.  The  most  solid  part 
consists  of  notes  contributed  by  Lord  Strangford,  a 
scientific  philologist,  and  they  are  comically  like  a 
tutor's  corrections  of  his  pupil's  exercise.  Mr.  Arnold 
tells  us,  with  engaging  frankness,  how  the  idea  of 
these  lectures  arose  in  his  mind.  He  was  staying  at 
Llandudno,  and  got  tired  of  gazing  on  the  sea,  espe- 
cially on  the  Liverpool   steamboats.     So  he  looked 


vu.]  THE   END   OF  THE   PROFESSORSHIP  97 

inland,  and  studied  the  local  traditions.  He  even 
attended  an  Eisteddfod,  which  he  describes  without 
entliusiasm.  This  national  institution  was  attacked 
at  that  time  by  a  great  English  newspaper  in  lan- 
guage of  almost  inconceivable  brutality,  which  would 
be  quite  impossible  now.  Mv.  Arnold,  a  true  gentle- 
man in  the  highest  meaning  of  the  term,  resented  the 
insult,  and  the  chief  merit  of  his  book  is  its  delicately 
sympathetic  handling  of  the  Celtic  character.  Admit- 
ting that  all  AVelshmen  ought  to  learn  English,  he 
pleads  for  the  preservation  of  the  Welsh  language, 
and  this  led  him  to  the  "  Science  of  Origins,"  on  which 
French  scholars  have  bestowed  so  much  research.  He 
reminded  the  English  people  that  they  have  a  Celtic 
as  well  as  a  Norman  element  in  them,  and  that  to  it 
they  owed  nuich  of  what  was  best  in  their  poetry.  His 
theory  that  rhyme  is  Celtic  has  been  disjjuted,  and  cer- 
tainly median'al  Latin  is  a  more  obvious  source.  The 
Celtic  genius  for  style,  for  '•  melancholy  and  natural 
magic,"  is  perhaps  hardly  borne  out  by  the  few  frag- 
ments of  translation  which  ^Ir.  Arnold  produces. 
But  the  notion  of  England  as  "a  vast  obscure  Cymric 
basis  with  a  vast  visible  Teutonic  superstructure  "  is 
fascinating,  if  unknown  and  unknowable.  Of  happy 
touches  this  little  volume  is  full.  There  we  have 
Luther  and  Bun3'an,  whose  connection  with  Celtic 
literature  is  remote,  labelled  as  "Philistines  of  genius.'* 
There  we  have  the  Celt  "always  ready  to  react  against 
the  despotism  of  fact."  Touches  of  human  interest 
are  not  wanting.  There  is  Owen  Jones,  who  slowly 
and  laboriously  amassed  a  ftu-tune  that  he  might  spend 
it  all  in  j»rintiiig  and  jiublishing  every  Welsli  manu- 
script upon  which  In;  could  lay  his  hands.  There  is 
n 


98  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap.  vii. 

Eugene  O'Curry,  tlie  learned  and  indefatigable  student 
of  his  native  Erse,  who  edited  the  Annals  of  the  Four 
blasters.  To  him  enters  Thomas  Moore,  lazily  con- 
templating a  History  of  Ireland,  and  remarks  pro- 
foundly that  these  Annals  "could  not  have  been 
written  by  fools,  or  for  any  foolish  purpose."  What 
the  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  and  the  Myvyrian 
Archaeology,  and  Lady  Charlotte  Guest's  Mabinogion, 
are  actually  worth,  we  know  no  more  when  we  have 
finished  the  book  than  we  knew  when  we  began  it. 
But  for  British  prejudice  against  other  nationalities  it 
is  a  wholesome  antidote.  In  this,  as  in  so  many  other 
respects,  Mr.  Arnold  was  in  advance  of  his  age,  unless, 
indeed,  we  prefer  to  say  that  he  led  his  generation  to 
a  culture  less  partial  and  more  urbane.  The  sever- 
est censor  of  sciolism,  to  which  perhaps  Mr.  Arnold 
was  not  wholly  a  stranger,  may  well  be  appeased  by 
such  a  charming  phrase  as  "  bellettristic  trifler,"  which 
this  amateur  of  Celtic  applies  to  himself. 


CH^VPTER  VIII 

THE   KEW  POEMS 

Thk  publication  of  Mr.  Arnold's  New  Poems  in  1867, 
though  directly  suggested  by  Mr.  Browning,  who 
wished  to  see  "  Empedocles  on  Etna "  restored  to  its 
original  shape,  was,  as  he  himself  said,  a  labour  of 
love.  He  has  expressed  in  familiar  lines  the  opinion 
that  i)oetry  which  gave  no  pleasure  to  the  writer  will 
give  no  pleasure  to  the  workl.  This  volume  had  an 
immediate  and  a  permanent  success.  It  bore  for 
motto,  besides  the  sentiment  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made,  the  pretty  quatrain,  which  age 
cannot  wither  — 

"  Though  the  Muse  be  gone  away, 
Though  she  move  not  earth  to-flay, 
Souls,  crcwhile  wlio  cauglit  her  word, 
Ah  !  still  harp  on  what  they  heard." 

"With  these  poems  the  poetical  career  of  ^latthew 
Arnold  may  be  said  to  close.  To  the  end  of  his  life 
he  wrote  occasional  verses.  But  they  were  few  in 
number,  and  they  neither,  with  the  exception  of 
"  Westminster  Abbey,"  added  to  his  fame  nor  de- 
tracted from  it.  His  outward  circumstances  harmon- 
ised with  this  inward  change.  Mr.  Arnold  ceased  to 
be  Professor  of  Poetry.  ]{e  remained  an  Inspector  of 
Schools.  P>ut  his  poetical  fame  was  established,  and 
uo  living   English  poet  except  Tennyson  was  incon- 


100  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

testably   his   superior.      The   greatest   poem   in    the 
volume,  some   think   the   greatest   he   ever  wrote,  is 
"  Thyrsis,"  a  monody,  or  elegy,  on  his  friend  Arthur 
Clough,  who  had  died,  as  we  have  seen,  at  Florence  in 
1861.     Mr.  Swinburne,  a  warm  admirer  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  has  expressed  a  too  contemptuous  estimate  of 
dough's  poetical  powers.    His  English  hexameters  and 
pentameters  are  doggerel,  though  the  ideas  which  they 
express  are  often  subtle.    But  some  of  his  shorter  pieces, 
such  as  "  Say  not  the  struggle  nought  availeth,"  and 
"  As  ships  at  eve  becalmed  they  lay,"  have  retained  their 
hold  upon  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.    Clough  is  not 
likely  ever  to  become  a  mere  name,  like  the  Eeverend 
Mr.  King.     That  "  Thyrsis  "  is  inferior  to  "  Lycidas  " 
hardly  requires  stating.      All  English  dirges,  except 
the   dirge   in   "  Cymbeline,"  are.     But   in   truth   the 
comparison  is  fruitless,  for  there  is  no  resemblance. 
Mr.  Arnold's  model  was  not  Milton,  but  Theocritus, 
and  "  Thyrsis  "  is  thoroughly  Theocritean  in  sentiment. 
The   opening   stanza   strikes   the   keynote,  and   is,  I 
think,    unsurpassed    throughout    the    poem.       It    is 
penetrated,  like  most  of  the  stanzas  which  succeed  it, 
with  the  spirit  of  the  place,  and  is  redolent  of  the 
beautiful  country  round  Oxford  — 

"  How  changed  is  here  each  spot  man  makes  or  fills  1 

In  the  two  Hinkseys  nothing  keeps  the  same  ; 
The  village  street  its  haunted  mansion  lacks, 

And  from  the  sign  is  gone  Sibylla's  name, 
And  from  the  roof  the  twisted  chimney-stacks  ;  — 

Are  ye  too  changed,  ye  hills  ? 
See,  'tis  no  foot  of  unfamiliar  men 

To-night  from  Oxford  up  your  pathway  strays  I 

Here  came  I  often,  often,  in  old  days, 
Thyrsis  and  I  j  we  still  had  Thyrsis  then." 


Tin.]  THE   XE]V  POEMS  101 

"  Thyrsis "  is  avowedly  a  sequel  to  "  The  Scholar 
Gipsy,"'  with  which  it  should  always  be  read.  I  do 
not  feel  able  to  decide  between  their  relative  merits. 
Even  Oxford  has  inspired  no  nobler  verse. 

But  thoui^h  "  Thyrsis  "  was  the  principal  of  the  Xew 
Poems,  and  the  best  example  of  Mr.  Arnold's  matured 
powers,  there  are  many  others  at  once  excellent  and 
characteristic.  *'  Saint  Braudan "  is  a  picturesque 
embodiment  of  a  strange  mediaeval  legend  touching 
Judas  Iscariot,  who  is  supposed  to  be  released  from 
Hell  for  a  few  hours  every  Christmas  because  he  had 
done  in  his  life  a  single  act  of  charity.  "  Calais 
Sands "  and  "  Dover  Beach "  strike  a  higher  note. 
"  Calais  Sands ''  is  cold  compared  with  the  love-poems 
in  "  Switzerland."  But  it  is  graceful,  and  charming, 
and  everything  except  real.  "  Dover  Beach  "  is  very 
different,  and  much  deeper.  Profoundly  melancholy 
in  tone,  it  expresses  the  peculiar  turn  of  Mr.  Arnold's 
mind,  at  once  religious  and  sceptical,  philosophical 
and  emotional,  better  than  his  formal  treatises  on 
philosophy  and  religion.  The  second  part  of  it 
deserves  to  be  quoted  at  length,  both  on  this  account 
and  for  its  literary  beauty  — 

"  The  Sea  of  Faith 
Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round  earth's  shore 
Lay  like  the  folds  of  a  bright  girdle  furPd  ; 
But  now  I  only  hoar 
Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 
Ketreating  to  the  breath 
Of  tho  iii^lit-wiiid  df>wn  the  vast  edges  drear 
And  naked  .shingles  of  the  world, 

"  Ah,  love,  let  us  be  true 
To  one  another  !  for  the  world,  which  seems 


102  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

To  lie  before  us  like  a  land  of  dreams, 

So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 

Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light, 

Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain  ; 

And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 

Swept  with  confused  alarm  of  struggle  and  fight, 

Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night !  " 

"  The  Last  Word  "  describes  the  plight  of  a  hopeless 
and  exhausted  straggler  against  a  Philistine  world  too 
strong  for  him.  It  is  one  of  INIr.  Arnold's  best  known 
poems,  and  need  not  be  reprinted  here.  The  last 
stanza  contains  a  curious,  and  rather  awkward,  am- 
biguity.    Thus  it  runs  :  — 

"  Charge  once  more,  then,  and  be  dumb  I 
Let  the  victors,  when  they  come, 
When  the  forts  of  folly  fall. 
Find  thy  body  by  the  wall." 

The  natural  meaning  of  these  words  would  be  that  the 
person  addressed  had  been  engaged  in  defending 
the  forts  of  folly,  which,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  is 
the  precise  opposite  of  what  Mr.  Arnold  intended. 
''  Bacchanalia,  or  The  New  Age,"  is  perhaps  the  most 
fanciful  among  all  Matthew  Arnold's  poems,  and  it  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  beautiful.  It  must  be  read 
as  a  whole,  for  it  illustrates  the  connection  of  the  past 
with  the  present  in  the  mind  of  a  j)oet.  But  the 
following  lines  would  be  missed  from  any  estimate  or 
criticism  of  Matthew  Arnold.  The  constant  repetition 
of  a  single  epithet  shows  where  Mr.  Arnold's  danger 
lay,  both  in  prose  and  verse.  In  this  case,  however, 
the  arrangement  is  so  skilful  that  the  trick,  for  it  must 
be  called  a  trick,  justifies  itself  — 


VIII.]  THE   NEW  I^'OEMS  103 

"The  epoch  ends,  the  workl  is  still. 
The  age  has  talk'd  aud  work'd  its  fill  — 
The  famous  orators  have  shone, 
The  famous  poets  sung  and  gone. 
The  famous  men  of  war  have  fought, 
The  famous  speculators  thought, 
The  famous  players,  sculptors  wrought, 
The  famous  painters  tilPd  their  wall, 
The  famous  critics  judg'd  it  all. 
The  comhatants  are  parted  now, 
Unhung  the  spear,  unbent  the  bow. 
The  puissant  crown'd,  the  weak  laid  low  !  " 

"  Rugby  Chapel,"  -writteu  so  far  back  as  1857,  and 
'•'Heiue's  Grave,"  are  Mr.  Arnold's  most  successful 
efforts  in  lyrical  metre  without  rhyme.  That  defect  is 
to  my  mind,  or  rather  to  my  ear,  a  fatal  one.  But  if 
ever  ^Ir.  Arnold  for  a  time  appears  to  surmount  it,  these 
are  the  poems  where  his  apparent  success  is  achieved. 
In  "  Rugby  Chapel "  he  praises  his  father  as  one  of 
those  who  were  not  content  with  saving  their  own 
souls,  but  sought  to  bring  others  with  them  — 

"  Tlien,  in  such  hour  of  need 
Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race, 
Ye,  like  angels,  appear, 
Radiant  with  ardour  divine. 
Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear  ! 
Languor  Ls  not  in  your  heart, 
Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 
Weariness  not  on  your  brow." 

"Heine's  Grave"  is  a  pa.infully  morbid  poem  on  a 
supremely  dismal  subject.  It  contains  some  grotesque 
instances  of  metrical  eccentricity.     Such  a  line  as 

"Paris  drawing-rooms  and  lamps" 


104  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

is  beyond  all  criticism,  out  of  the  pale.  But  the 
famous  description  of  England,  or  the  British  Empire, 
is  as  good  as  anything  of  the  kind  can  be :  — 

"  Yes,  we  arraign  her  !  but  she, 
The  weary  Titan  !  with  deaf 
Ears,  and  labour-dimm'd  eyes, 
Regarding  neither  to  right, 
Nor  left,  goes  passively  by, 
Staggering  on  to  her  goal ; 
Bearing  on  shoulders  immense, 
Atlantean,  the  load. 
Well-nigh  not  to  be  borne, 
Of  the  too  vast  orb  of  her  fate." 

If  the  thing  is  to  be  done  at  all,  that  is  how  one  should 
do  it. 

The  "  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,"  though 
included  in  this  volume,  appeared  in  Fraser's  Magazine 
for  April  1855.  They  are  very  stately  and  solemn 
stanzas.  Every  one  knows  the  famous  lines  about 
Byron,  and  the  "  pageant  of  his  bleeding  heart."  Less 
familiar,  but  I  think  liner,  is  the  author's  own  attitude 
of  wistful  yearning  reverence  for  the  comfort  of  a  creed 
he  cannot  hold  — 

"Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born, 
With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head, 
Like  these,  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn. 
Their  faith,  my  tears,  the  world  deride  — 
I  come  to  shed  them  at  your  side. 
Oh,  hide  me  in  your  gloom  profound, 
Ye  solemn  seats  of  holy  pain  ! 
Take  me,  cowl'd  forms,  and  fence  me  round, 
Till  I  possess  my  soul  again  ; 


VIII.]  •      THE   XE]V  rOEJfS  105 

Till  free  my  thoughts  before  me  roll, 
Not  chafed  by  liourly  false  control ! " 

With  these  pathetic  lines  Ave  may  take  oitr  leave 
for  the  present  of  ^Fr.  Arnold  as  a  poet.  lie  had 
other  work  to  do,  and  from  duty  he  never  shrank. 
From  this  time  forth  the  poetic  stream  ran  thin, 
though  it  never  quite  ran  out. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EDUCATION 

Education  is  proverbially  a  dull  subject.  But  in 
Mr.  Arnold's  case  it  cannot  be  omitted,  and  in  his 
hands  it  was  never  dull.  He  was  an  Inspector  of 
Schools  for  five-and-thirty  years,  resigning  his  post  only 
two  years  before  his  death.  The  Department  wisely 
and  properly  treated  him  with  great  indulgence.  He 
always  had  the  most  interesting  work  that  there  was 
to  do.  But  his  life  was  a  laborious  one.  He  was  more 
than  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  the  intellec- 
tual improvement  of  his  countrymen.  When  he  was 
first  appointed  an  Inspector  there  existed  a  sort  of 
agreement  between  Church  and  State.  The  Catholic 
schools  were  inspected  by  Catholics ;  schools  belonging 
to  the  Church  of  England  were  officially  visited  by 
clergymen.  Being  neither  a  clergyman  nor  a  Catholic, 
Mr.  Arnold  was  assigned  to  Protestant  schools  not 
connected  with  the  Church  of  England,  or,  in  other 
words,  to  the  schools  of  the  Dissenters.  He  did  not 
get  on  with  Dissenters,  and  his  irritation,  as  we  shall 
see,  found  vent  in  his  writings.  After  1870,  when 
compulsory  education  began,  and  denominational  in- 
spection was  abandoned,  Mr.  Arnold  confined  himself 
to  the  borough  of  Westminster,  where  for  a  long  time 
there  was  only  one  Board  school.     He  was  the  idol  of 

100 


cuAP.  IX.]  EDUCATION  107 

the  children,  for  he  petted  them  and  treated  them  with 
the  easy  condescension  which  was  his  charm.  Upon  the 
teachers  his  influence  was  still  more  important.  "  In- 
directly," says  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  "  his  tine  taste,  his 
gracious  and  kindly  manner,  his  honest  and  gen- 
erous recognition  of  any  new  form  of  excellence 
which  he  observed,  all  tended  to  raise  the  aims  and 
the  tone  of  the  teachers  with  whom  he  came  in  contact, 
and  to  encourage  in  them  self-respect,  and  respect  for 
their  work."  His  official  reports  were  most  inter- 
esting and  instructive.  He  had  a  natural  insight  into 
the  real  merits  and  defects  of  public  teaching.  He 
saw  things  as  they  were.  "  The  t3-pical  mental  defect 
of  our  school  children,"  he  said,  "is  their  almost 
incredible  scantiness  of  vocabvdary."  This  is  a  national 
deficiency;  and  no  one  who  has  sat,  for  howsoever 
short  a  time,  in  Parliament,  can  believe  that  it  is 
peculiar  to  children.  Mr.  Arnold  held  no  narrow  or 
rigid  view  of  the  difference  between  primary  and 
secondary  education.  He  thought  that  tlie  rudi- 
ments of  French  and  Latin  might  well  be  taught  in 
elementary  schools.  He  was  also  an  advocate  for 
teaching  in  them  the  beginnings  of  natural  science,  or 
what  Huxley  used  to  call  "Physiography."  "The 
excuse,"  as  he  put  it  characteristically,  "  for  putting 
most  of  these  matters  into  our  programme  is  that 
we  are  all  coming  to  be  agreed  that  an  entire  igno- 
rance of  the  system  of  nature  is  as  grave  a  defect  in 
our  children's  education  as  not  to  know  that  there 
ever  was  such  a  person  as  Charles  the  First." 

In  1808  apjjcared  Mv.  Arnold's  Report  upon  Schools 
and  Universities  on  the  Continent.  It  deals  with  edu- 
cation in   l-'niiK-e,  Italy,    Germany,  and   Switzerland. 


108  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

But  its  practical  interest  is  restricted  to  France  and 
Germany.  For  the  Swiss  system  was  almost  identical 
with  the  German,  and  in  Italy  at  that  time  national 
education  was  in  its  infancy. 

French  institutions  and  French  habits  of  thought 
were  always  thoroughly  congenial  to  Mr.  Arnold.  His 
lucid,  methodical  mind  was  attracted  by  the  thorough- 
ness of  French  logic,  and  he  was  more  especially 
fascinated  by  the  orderly  sequence  with  which  the 
pupil  ascended  from  the  primary  school  to  the  uni- 
versity. Himself  the  product  of  reformed  Rugby,  and 
of  unreformed  Oxford,  a  child  of  the  old  learning  and 
the  new  spirit,  he  was  appalled  by  the  anomalous  con- 
dition of  English  universities,  and  by  the  chaos  of 
intermediate  teaching  in  England.  With  the  admir- 
able schools  of  Scotland  he  had  nothing  to  do.  The 
secondary  schools  of  France,  all  under  the  Minister 
of  Education,  he  described  with  hearty  though  not 
uncritical  praise.  The  University  of  Paris,  the  great 
seat  of  learning  in  the  Middle  Ages,  moved  him  to 
unwonted  enthusiasm.  He  envied  the  Professors  who 
were  only  teachers,  and  declared  that  he  would  rather 
have  their  moderate  salary  with  abundant  leisure  than 
be  a  Master  in  one  of  our  public  schools,  receiving 
twice  their  pay,  but  having  no  time  to  himself.  The 
Iilcole  Normale,  the  training  college  for  French  teach- 
ers, he  pronounced  to  be  excellent.  No  one  in  Eng- 
land was  taught  to  teach,  whereas  in  France  the  State 
made  itself  directly  responsible  for  all  kinds  of  edu- 
cation, and  the  most  stringent  tests  were  applied  to 
teachers.  Then,  again,  the  French  language  in  France, 
unlike  the  English  language  in  England,  was  made 
the  subject  of  thorough  and  serious  study.     Even  in 


IX.]  EDUCATION  109 

learning  the  classics  the  development  of  the  mother 
tongue,  and  its  resources,  Avas  the  first  consideration 
impressed  upon  the  mind.  Examinations,  ]\[r.  Arnold 
held,  Avere  better  understood  in  France  than  here. 
The  French  did  not  attempt  to  examine  bojs  before 
they  were  fifteen,  and  he  held  very  strongly  the 
opinion  that  before  that  age  intellectual  pressure 
was  dangerous.  Between  fifteen  and  twenty-five  he 
thought  that  the  mind  could  hardly  be  overworked. 
Tested  by  results,  he  showed  that  the  French  schools 
were  far  more  successful  than  our  own.  "When  he 
wrote,  there  were  in  the  public  schools  of  England 
fifteen  thousand  boys.  In  the  public  schools  of 
France  there  were  sixty-six  thousand.  It  may,  how- 
ever be  doubted  whether  tlie  standard  of  comparison 
was  a  fair  one.  The  French  lyceums  provided  for  a 
class  which  in  England  was  even  more  content  than  it 
is  now  with  private  or  ''  adventure  "  schools. 

On  one  point,  and  that  certainly  not  the  least  impor- 
tant, ^Ir.  Arnold  had  to  confess  that  French  boarding- 
schools  were  most  unsatisfactory.  He  gave  the  worst 
possible  account  of  the  ushers,  the  maitres  d'etudes. 
They  were  drudges,  they  were  not  required  to  teach, 
and  they  were  miserably  underpaid.  Their  duty  was 
to  protect  the  morals  of  tlie  boys,  but  many  of  them 
were  gravely  suspected  of  doing  exactly  the  opposite. 
No  scientific  perfection  of  teaching  can  make  up  for 
such  an  evil  as  this.  After  all,  there  is  something  to 
be  said  for  tlie  freedom  and  honour  of  Eton  and  Har- 
row, of  Iiugl)y  and  Winchester.  There  are  cruelty 
and  vice  in  all  schools.  But  constant  supervision  and 
absolute  distrust  encourage  more  mischief  than  they 
prevent.     In   French  schools  the  hours  of   work  are 


110  MATTHEW  AIINOLD  [chap. 

longer,   and   the   means  of   recreation   scantier,  tlian 
English  boys  would  endure. 

Mr.  Arnold's  Reports  on  French,  Swiss,  and  Italian 
Education  were  never  republished.  To  his  Report 
on  the  Education  of  Germany  he  must  himself  have 
attached  more  value,  for  he  brought  it  out  again  in 
1874,  and  a  third  time  in  1882.  Perhaps  he  considered 
the  example  of  a  Teutonic  race  more  likely  to  be  con- 
tagious. The  cheapness  of  German  education  struck 
him  forcibly,  and  though  prices  had  nearly  doubled 
before  the  reappearance  of  his  Report,  he  maintained 
that  the  relative  proportion  between  the  two  countries 
was  the  same.  This  could  not  be  said  now,  but  there 
is  still  much  room  for  economy  in  the  public  schools 
and  universities  of  England.  German  schools,  as 
Mr.  Arnold  found  them,  were  denominational,  with  a 
conscience  clause,  and  attendance  at  them  was  com- 
pulsory for  all  classes.  In  Prussia,  which  Mr.  Arnold 
took  as  typical  of  Germany,  the  Government,  as  in 
France,  set  up  an  educational  ladder  which  a  promis- 
ing boy  could  mount  from  the  bottom  rung  to  the  top. 
Adepts  in  education  were  consulted  by  the  State,  as 
they  were  not  in  England.  This  was  a  point  which 
Mr.  Arnold  put  very  strongly,  and  he  urged  it  with 
some  exaggeration.  It  is  not  quite  true  that  expert 
opinion  has  been  rejected  by  the  Education  Depart- 
ment, now  the  Board  of  Education.  Mr.  Arnold's  own 
Reports,  for  instance,  were  very  carefully  considered 
by  his  official  superiors,  and  of  Education  Commissions 
there  has  been  no  end.  The  difficulties  in  carrying  out 
their  recommendations  have  been  Parliamentary,  and 
the  great  difficulty  of  all  has  been  the  religious  one. 
In  Germany,  as  in  France,  the   mother   tongue  was 


II.]  EDUCATION  111 

carefully  taught,  aud  in  the  liealschde,  intended  to 
prepare  boys  for  business,  English  was  obligatory,  as 
■well  as  French.  In  England  the  teaching  of  foreign 
languages  has  made  much  progress  since  ]Mr.  Arnold's 
day,  but  the  study  of  English  is  conlined  to  elementary 
schools.  The  public,  or  national,  schools  of  Prussia 
are  not  boarding-schools,  and  the  boys  are,  or  were, 
for  the  most  part  taken  in  by  private  families.  The 
German  universities  are  the  only  avenue  to  the  learned 
professions,  and,  as  is  well  known,  a  German  professor, 
though  receiving,  according  to  our  standard,  a  small 
salary,  holds  a  position  of  great  dignity.  Admittance 
to  a  German  university  is  obtained  only  by  examination, 
and  the  test  is  a  severe  one.  For  the  teachers  there  is 
a  very  stringent  examination  indeed.  They  have  to 
graduate  in  "  paedagogic  "  before  they  reach  the  faadtas 
docendi.  Mr.  Arnold  was  conscious  that  to  most  Eng- 
lishmen all  this  would  seem  mere  pedantry.  No  man 
was  less  of  a  pedant  than  he.  But  he  held  that  his 
countrymen's  ideas  of  education  were  hopelessly  un- 
scientific, and  he  did  his  best  to  correct  them.  He 
believed  in  the  State  as  an  instrument  of  education, 
as  we  have  all  come  to  believe  in  it  now,  and  the  official 
position  of  German  universities  was  congenial  to  him. 
,  At  the  same  time,  the  German  teachers  were  not,  as 
the  French  were,  liable  to  dismissal  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Mr.  Arnold  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  fallen 
in  love  with  the  German  system  of  education.  The 
French  universities,  he  said,  wanted  liberty ;  the  Eng- 
lish universities  wanted  science;  the  German  universi- 
ties had  botli. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Arnold  recommended  that  Greek 
and  Latin  should  Ijc  studied  in  England  more  after  the 


112  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap.  ix. 

fashion  of  modern  languages.  The  German  boys  he 
found  inferior  to  the  English  in  composition,  where 
English  scholarship  has  always  been  peculiarly  strong. 
But  the  making  of  Latin  verses  is  not,  even  in  this 
country,  so  favourite  a  pursuit  as  it  was  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years  ago,  and  the  scientific  study  of  com- 
parative philology  has  seriously  modified  classical  edu- 
cation. Our  secondary  schools,  to  whose  badness  Mr. 
Arnold  traced  an  undue  distinction  between  classes  in 
England,  are  almost  as  bad  as  ever.  But  some  of  his 
proposals  have  been  carried  out.  He  was  the  real 
father  of  university  extension,  and  he  recommended 
that  the  University  of  London  should  be  made  a 
teaching  institution,  as  it  was  twelve  years  after  his 
death.  Of  all  educational  reformers  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, not  excepting  his  father,  Mr.  Arnold  was  the 
most  enlightened,  the  most  far-sighted,  and  the  most 
fair-minded. 


CHAPTER  X 

MK.  Arnold's  piiilosophy 

Matthew  Arxold  always  disclaimed  the  epithet 
rhilosopher,  just  as  he  repudiated  the  title  of  Pro- 
fessor. But  he  had  a  philosophy  of  his  owu,  which 
was  perhaps,  like  Cicero's,  rather  Academic  than  Stoic 
or  Epicurean.  He  was  always  much  interested  in 
the  history  of  religion,  and  he  took  great  delight  in 
Deutsch's  famous  essay  on  the  Talmud,  which  appeared 
in  the  Qnarterli/  Beview  for  October  18G7.  He  wrote 
about  it  to  Lady  de  Rothschild  on  the  4th  of  November 
in  a  letter  which  well  deserves  to  be  quoted,  because 
it  contains  the  germ  of  a  theory  that  afterwards 
coloured  almost  the  whole  of  his  writings.  Wliat  he 
liked  best  himself,  he  said,  in  the  article,  were  "  the 
long  extracts  from  the  Talmud  itself,"  which  gave  him 
"huge  satisfaction."  With  the  Christian  character  of 
later  Judaism  he  was  already  well  acquainted.  "  It  is 
curious,"  he  added,  "  that,  though  Indo-European,  the 
English  people  is  so  constituted  and  trained  that  there 
is  a  thou.sand  times  more  chance  of  bringing  it  to  a 
more  philosophical  conception  of  religion  than  its 
present  conception  of  Christianity  as  something  utterly 
unique,  isolated,  and  self-subsistent,  through  Judaism 
and  its  phajnomena,  than  through  Hellenism  and  its 
phaenomena."  Mr.  Arnold's  interest  in  such  matters, 
I  113 


114  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

however,  did  not  take  his  mind  off  politics,  upon  which 
he  always  kept  a  very  keen  eye.  His  theory  of  the 
Clerkenwell  explosion,  in  December  1867,  was  at  least 
original.  He  traced  it  to  the  immunity  of  the  Hyde 
Park  rioters  in  1866.  "  You  cannot,"  he  wrote  to  his 
mother  on  the  14th  of  December,  ''you  cannot  have  one 
measure  for  Fenian  rioting  and  another  for  English 
rioting,  merely  because  the  design  of  Fenian  rioting  is 
more  subversive  and  desperate.  What  the  State  has 
to  do  is  to  put  down  all  rioting  with  a  strong  hand,  or 
it  is  sure  to  drift  into  troubles."  It  is  true,  but  not 
the  whole  truth.  Sir  Kobert  Peel  once  said  that 
everybody  told  him  he  ought  to  be  firm,  as  if  he  did  not 
know  that,  and  as  if  the  whole  art  of  statesmanship  con- 
sisted in  firmness.  The  rioters  of  1866  might  say  that 
they  carried  the  Keform  Act  of  1867,  and  the  rioters 
of  1867  might  say  that  they  disestablished  the  Irish 
Church  in  1869.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  rioters  of 
1867  were  dangerous,  and  the  rioters  of  1866  were  not. 
In  the  same  letter,  Mr.  Arnold  mentions  a  tribute 
from  a  teacher  of  which  he  felt  justly  proud.  He 
"was  always  gentle  and  patient  with  the  children." 
No  inspector  of  schools  has  ever  been  more  universally 
beloved,  though  some,  it  must  be  confessed,  have  taken 
their  duties  in  a  more  serious  spirit.  At  the  beginning 
of  1868  he  was  amused  and  pleased  at  an  invitation 
from  the  proprietors  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  to  write 
them  a  notice  of  l)lake  the  artist,  and  to  "name  his 
own  price."  "  I  sent  a  civil  refusal,"  he  characteristi- 
cally remarks ;  "  but,  you  may  depend  upon  it.  Lord 
Lytton  was  right  in  saying  that  it  is  no  inconsiderable 
advantage  to  you  that  all  the  writing  world  have  a 
kind  of  weakness  for  you  even  at  the  time  they  are 


X.]  MR.    ARNOLDS   rillLOSOPHY  115 

attacking  you.''  Early  this  year,  ^Mr.  Arnold  moved 
from  London  to  Harrow  for  the  better  education  of  his 
children.  At  Harrow,  on  the  23rd  of  November,  his 
eldest  son,  wlio  had  always  been  an  invalid,  died,  and 
on  the  next  day  ]\Ir.  George  Kussell  found  the  father 
seeking  consolation  from  the  pages  of  his  favourite 
^larcus  Aurelius.  His  feeling  for  religion  was  never 
confined  to  Christianity. 

Early  in  1807  ]\ressrs.  Smith  and  Elder  —  that  is  to 
say,  Mr.  Arnold's  valued  friend  of  a  lifetime,  ^Ir. 
George  Smith  —  published  Culture  and  Anarchy,  which 
contains  the  writer's  philosophical  system,  so  far  as  he 
had  one.  Systematic  thought  he  half  ironically  dis- 
claimed. But  he  meant  even  by  the  title  of  his  book 
to  convey  that  lawlessness  was  the  result  of  not  de- 
ferring to  the  authority  of  cultivated  persons.  There 
was  point  in  the  sarcasm  of  the  Nonconformist  critic 
who  spoke  of  ^Mr.  Arnold's  Ix-lief  in  the  well-known 
preference  of  the  Almighty  for  University  men.  It  is, 
however,  undeniably  true  that  whereas  in  France  and 
Germany  people  have  too  little  regard  for  individual 
freedom,  in  England  adepts  are  slighted,  knowledge 
undervalued,  and  the  claim  of  every  man  to  do  as 
lie  pleases  elevated  from  a  legal  doctrine  into  a  moral 
ideal.  There  is  some  truth,  though  also  some  exaggera- 
tion, in  the  following  passage  :  "  While  on  the  Continent 
the  idea  prevails  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  heads 
and  representatives  of  the  nation,  by  virtue  of  their 
superior  means,  power,  and  information,  to  set  an 
example  and  to  provide  suggestions  of  right  reason, 
among  us  the  idea  is  that  the  business  of  the  heads 
and  representatives  of  tlie  nation  is  to  do  ntjthing  of 
the  kind,  but  applaud  the  natural  taste  for  tlic  bathus 


116  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [chap, 

showing  itself  vigorously  in  any  ]3art  of  the  community, 
and  to  encourage  its  works "  (Culture  and  Anarch]/, 
second  edition,  p.  115).  That  is  what  Mr.  Arnold 
would  himself  have  called  a  heightened  and  telling  way 
of  putting  it.  But  he  was  attacking  a  real  error,  of 
which  practical  politics  afford  numerous  examples.  It 
is  difficult  to  be  personal  without  being  offensive.  If  I 
could  avoid  offence  by  taking  two  instances  from  the 
same  party,  I  should  say  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  repre- 
sented the  theory  assailed  by  Mr.  Arnold  (for  which 
there  is  much  to  be  said),  and  Mr.  Balfour  the  theory 
he  would  have  substituted  for  it. 

Culture,  says  Mr.  Arnold  in  his  Preface  (page  x.),  is 
"  a  pursuit  of  our  total  perfection  by  means  of  getting 
to  know,  on  all  the  matters  which  most  concern  us,  the 
best  which  has  been  thought  and  said  in  the  world." 
In  this  respect  no  man  ever  practised  what  he  preached 
more  thoroughly  than  Matthew  Arnold.  To  use  a 
phrase  widely  current  of  late,  he  was  "  the  fine  flower 
of  Oxford  culture,"  and  there  has  seldom  been  a 
more  delicate,  or  a  more  delightful  specimen.  Yet 
he  belonged,  as  he  often  said,  to  the  middle  class,  whom 
he  called  Philistines,  implying  that  culture  was  what 
they  lacked.  Philistinism  is  a  convenient  and  expres- 
sive term.  But  it  describes  a  frame  of  mind,  not  a  class. 
Mr.  Arnold,  as  I  have  said  before,  used  the  word 
"  class  "  as  if  it  were  synonymous  with  caste,  which  in 
English  society  does  not  exist.  Common  occupations, 
common  professions,  above  all,  intermarriage,  make  it 
impossible.  There  is  nothing,  except  his  title,  to  dis- 
tinguish a  lord  from  a  commoner.  The  richest  people 
are  not  the  best  educated,  nor  the  worst.  Mr.  Arnold 
called  "  the  aristocracy,"  which  he  would  have  been 


X.]  MR.   ARNOLD'S   nilLOSOPHY  117 

puzzled  to  define,  barbarians,  because  they  cared  more 
for  field  sports  than  for  the  improvement  of  their  minds. 
Some  of  them  do,  some  of  them  do  not.  There  is  no 
rule.  The  love  of  sport  pervades  the  working  classes 
as  well  as  the  House  of  Lords.  Mr.  Arnold's  name  for 
the  proletariate  was  a  confession  of  failure.  He 
simply  called  them  "  the  populace,"  which  is  no  more 
descriptive  than  Mr.  Bright's  "  residuum."  The  English 
people  do  not  live  in  classes,  they  live  as  individuals, 
and  in  sets.  Culture  and  ignorance,  simplicity  and 
\'ulgarity,  high  and  low  ideals,  are  pretty  equally 
divided  among  all  sections  of  the  community.  ]\Ir. 
Arnold  refers  (at  page  xviii.  of  his  Preface)  to  tlie 
"  undesirable  provincialism  of  the  English  Puritans 
and  Protestant  Nonconformists."  If  by  provincialism 
(a  rather  "  provincial "  Avord)  is  meant  narrowness  of 
view,  it  miglit  apply  to  the  school  of  Mr.  Spurgeon, 
but  it  certainly  would  not  apply  to  the  school  of  Dr. 
!Martineau.  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  lump  Dr. 
Creighton  with  Dr.  Kyle  because  both  were  Anglican 
Bishops. 

In  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ^Ir.  Arnold  preaches  his 
favourite  doctrine  of  "  sweetness  and  light."  The 
phrase,  as  he  acknowledged,  is  Swift's.  Swift  used  it 
of  the  bees,  because  they  make  honey  and  wax.  Mr. 
Arnold  transferred  it  to  the  operation  of  culture,  which 
would,  if  it  could,  "make  reason  and  the  will  of  God 
prevail."  He  contrasted  it  witli  the  motto  of  the 
Nonconformist  newspaper :  "  The  Dissidence  of  Dissent 
and  the  Protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion."  It 
is  easy  to  be  sarcastic  upon  this  pugnacious  device, 
and  to  quote  St.  Peter's  *'  Be  of  one  mind " ;  but 
without   Protestantism,  which   is  a  form  of  Dissent, 


118  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Mr.  Arnold's  books  -would  have  been  condemned  and 
suppressed.  The  religious  freedom  in  which  he  so 
lavishly  indulged,  was  secured  for  him  by  the  objects 
of  his  constant  gibes.  Mr,  Arnold's  official  connection 
with  Oxford  had  now  ceased,  but  her  hold  upon  his 
allegiance  was  undiminished.  "  We  have  not  won  our 
political  battles,"  he  says,  at  page  32,  "  we  have  not 
carried  our  main  points,  we  have  not  stopped  our 
adversaries'  advance,  we  have  not  marched  victoriously 
with  the  modern  world;  but  we  have  told  silently 
upon  the  mind  of  the  country,  we  have  prepared 
currents  of  feeling  which  sap  our  adversaries'  position 
when  it  seems  gained,  we  have  kept  up  our  own 
communications  with  the  future."  Who  are  "  we  "  ? 
Mr.  Arnold  means  Oxford  men,  and  he  refers  to  the 
Oxford  Movement.  But  Oxford  would  have  con- 
demned jSTewman's  most  famous  Tract  if  two  High 
Church  proctors  had  not  interfered,  and  the  same 
Oxford  actually  degraded  Dr.  Ward  for  writing  a  High 
Church  book.  The  intellectual,  as  distinguished  from 
the  political.  Liberalism  of  Oxford  dates  from  the 
admission  of  Nonconformists.  It  is  only  fair  to  add, 
before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject,  that  Mr.  Arnold 
himself  acknowledges  his  tripartite  division  of  society 
not  to  be  mutually  exclusive.  "  An  English  barbarian 
who  examines  himself,"  he  says,  on  page  9G,  "  will  in 
general  find  himself  to  be  not  so  entirely  a  barbarian, 
but  that  he  has  in  him  also  something  of  the  Philistine, 
and  even  something  of  the  Populace  as  well.  And  the 
same  with  Englishmen  of  the  other  two  classes." 
Just  so.  But,  then,  what  is  the  value  of  the  classifica- 
tion? One  is  reminded  of  Thurlow's  famous  remark 
about  Kenyon  and  Buller.  A  rule  with  too  many 
exceptions  ceases  to  be  a  rule  at  all. 


X.]  MR.    AKNOLDS  PHILOSOPHY  119 

"No  man,"  saj'S  Mr.  Arnold,  at  page  1G3,  "no  man 
who  knows  nothing  else  knows  even  his  Bible."  The 
sentiment  is  familiar;  and  Mr.  Kudyard  Kipling  has 
performed  a  variation  upon  it  in  his  celebrated,  but 
fallacious,  inquiry,  *'  AVhat  can  they  know  of  England 
who  only  England  know  ?  "  The  answer  to  Mr.  Kipling 
is  —  "  Everything,  if  they  read  the  newspapers."  Mr. 
Arnold  was  aiming  at  Mr.  Spurgeon,  but  he  hit  l^unyan 
without  meaning  it.  If  stupid  people  would  read  the 
Bible  less,  and  clever  people  would  read  it  more,  the 
world  would  be  much  improved.  The  objects  of  ISlr. 
Arnold's  just  scorn  were  not  really  men  who  confined 
themselves  to  the  Bible,  but  those  who  tried  to  serve 
God  and  ]\Iammon.  Such,  for  example,  was  a  late 
Chairman  of  the  Great  Western  Bailway,  who  quoted 
to  the  workmen  at  Swindon  the  beautiful  sentence 
uttered  to  him  every  morning  by  his  mother  when  he 
went  to  work  on  the  line.  "  Ever  remember,  my  dear 
Dan,"  said  the  good  lady,  "that  you  should  look  for- 
ward to  being  some  day  manager  of  that  concern."  The 
words  of  the  Gospel  were  fulfilled  in  Dan.  He  had 
his  reward.  He  did  become  manager  of  that  not  very 
well-managed  concern.  He  was  outwardly  more  for- 
tunate than  the  secretary  of  the  insurance  company 
who  committed  suicide  because  he  "laboured  under 
the  ai)prehension  that  he  would  come  to  poverty,  and 
that  he  was  eternally  lost."  Against  the  vulgar  degra- 
dation of  religion,  as  unchristian  as  it  is  gloomy  and 
sordid,  implied  in  these  awful  words,  Matthew  Ar- 
nold set  his  face,  and  so  far  he  followed  the  teach- 
ing of  Chri.st. 

Mr.  Arnold  had  now  a  European  reputation  as  a  man 
of  letters,  and  at  the  beginning  of  18G0  the  Italian 


120  MATTPIEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

Government  proposed  to  him  that  Prince  Thomas  of 
Savoy,  the  Duke  of  Genoa,  who  a  year  afterwards 
refused  the  crown  of  Spain,  shoukl  live  with  the 
Arnolds  at  Harrow  while  he  attended  the  school. 
The  proposal  would  not  have  been  attractive  to  every 
one,  but  it  suited  Mr.  Arnold  very  well.  He  was  socia- 
ble in  his  tastes,  and  cosmopolitan  in  his  sympathies. 
He  had  travelled  a  good  deal  on  the  Continent,  and 
knew  foreign  languages  well.  Mrs.  Arnold  had  no 
objection,  and  she,  after  all,  as  he  remarked  to  his 
mother,  was  the  person  most  concerned.  The  arrange- 
ment answered  perfectly,  and  Mr.  Arnold,  who  loved 
young  people,  became  very  fond  of  the  prince.  The 
boy  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  apprehension  that  Mr.  Arnold  would  subvert 
his  faith;  and  when  he  left  Harrow  in  1871,  his  host 
received  from  Victor  Emmanuel  "the  Order  of  Com- 
mander of  the  Crown  of  Italy."  Mr.  Arnold's  failure  in 
getting  a  Commissionership  under  his  brother-in-law's 
Endowed  Schools'  Act  he  attributed,  no  doubt  correctly, 
to  Mr.  Gladstone ;  but  the  disappointment  was  not  very 
keen,  and  when  the  Conservatives  came  into  power 
five  years  afterwards,  they  put  a  summary  end  to  the 
Commission.  On  the  other  hand,  he  thoroughly  appre- 
ciated the  honorary  degree  conferred  upon  him  by  his 
own  University  at  the  Commemoration  of  1870.  The 
list  was  made  out  by  the  new  Chancellor,  Lord  Salis- 
bury, who  had  succeeded  Lord  Derby  the  year  before, 
and  none  of  the  names  chosen  did  more  credit  to  his 
choice  than  Mr.  Arnold's.  He  was  presented  to  Lord 
Salisbury  by  his  friend  Mr.  Bryce,  the  Professor  of 
Civil  Law,  and  received  by  graduates  as  well  as  under- 
graduates with  a  heartiness  which  greatly  pleased  him. 


X.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S   rillLOSOPIIY  ]21 

Tliis   year  1870  may  be   assigned   as   the   date    of 
Matthew  Arnold's  open  breach  with  the  rtdigious,  or 
at  least  the  orthodox,  world.     The  later  stages  of  that 
qnarrel,  not  in  all  respects  creditable  to  either  side, 
will  be  traced    in   the   next   chapter,    which   will   be 
devoted   to   ^Iv.    Arnold's   theology.      St.    Paul   ami 
Protesta)itism,    tcith   an   Ef<sa>/   on    Puritanism   in   the 
Clturch  of  England,  was  reprinted,  like  Culture  and 
AnarcJnj,    from   the    Cornhill  Magazine.     It  is  rather 
philosophical    than   theological,    and    carries    a    step 
further    the    principles    laid    down    in    Culture    and 
Anarchy.     Its   object   was   twofold.     The   author  de- 
sired to  contrast  Hebraism,  the  philosophy  of  morals, 
with   Hellenism,    the    philosophy   of    thought.      He 
sought   also   to   prove   that   Evangelical   Puritanism, 
which  grounded  itself  upon  the  doctrines  of  St.  I'aul, 
had  misunderstood  and  perverted  the  teaching  of  the 
apostle.  Of  Evangelical  Puritanism  the  Nonconformists 
were  the  chief  representatives,  and  therefore  they  come 
in  for  a  peculiar  share  of  Mr.  Arnold's  attention ;  but 
he  deals  also  with  the  Evangelical  party  in  the  Church 
of  England,  then  stronger,  at  least  among  the  clergy, 
than    it   is   now.      Translating,  or   paraphrasing,  the 
Greek   word   'ETruiKeta  by  "sweet  reasonableness,"  he 
urged  that  that  was  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
which  St.  Paul  had  derived  from  the  teacliing  of  his 
Master.     Setting  this  against  the  spirit  of  contentiou.s- 
ness   which,   in   his   opinion,    Dissent    developed,   he 
proceeded  to  argiie  in  favour  of  unity,  of  one  Church. 
So  far  his  position  was  thoroughly  agreeable  to  the 
Anglican  Establishment.     Put  it  soon  appeared  that 
tlje  new  and  universal  Church  was  to  be  ])urge(l  of  all 
dogma.     God  was  no  longer  to  be,  as  the   Calvinists 


122  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

made  Him,  "a  magnified  and  non-natural  man,"  but 
''  that  stream  of  tendency  by  which  all  things  strive  to 
fulfil  the  law  of  their  being."  This  is  Pantheism,  pure 
and  simple.  Now  Pantheism,  though  a  profoundly 
religious  creed,  is  not  regarded  with  favour  by  orthodox 
Protestants,  or,  for  that  matter,  by  orthodox  Catholics. 
I  remember  that,  when  I  was  at  Oxford,  a  Bampton 
Lecturer  incurred  much  ridicule  by  this  passionate 
adjuration  from  the  pulpit :  "  I  beseech  you,  brethren," 
said  he,  "  by  the  mercies  of  Christ,  that  you  hold  fast 
to  the  integrity  of  your  anthropomorphism."  It  was 
enough  to  make  Dean  Mansel  turn  in  his  grave.  But, 
as  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  in  a  brilliant  though  now  for- 
gotten essay,  and  Mr.  Mill,  in  his  examination  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  reminded  Mr.  Mansel, 
a  Deity  of  whom  no  human  or  natural  qualities  can 
be  predicated  is  a  mere  abstraction,  and  for  practical 
purposes  might  as  well  not  exist. 

What,  then,  according  to  Mr.  Arnold,  was  St.  Paul's 
real  doctrine  ?  It  will  be  found  on  page  42  of  the 
second  edition.  "  This  man,  whom  Calvin  and  Luther 
and  their  followers  have  shut  up  into  the  two  scholas- 
tic doctrines  of  election  and  justification,  would  have 
said,  could  we  hear  him,  just  what  he  said  about  cir- 
cumcision and  uncircumcision  in  his  own  day  :  '  Elec- 
tion is  nothing,  and  justification  is  nothing,  but  the 
keeping  of  the  commandments  of  God.'"  It  may  be 
so.  What  has  been  said  generally  of  the  Bible  is  true 
especially  of  St.  Paul.  Everybody  goes  to  the  Pauline 
Epistles  for  his  own  doctrines,  and  everybody  finds 
them.  They  are  far  more  difficult  to  understand  than 
Plato  or  Aristotle,  and  yet  preachers  wholly  innocent 
of  hermeneutics  will   expound  them    with  the   most 


X.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S    rillLOSOl'IIY  123 

touching  confidence.  !Mr.  Arnold  had  a  short  way  of 
eliminating  from  St.  Paul  what  he  ditl  not  like,  such 
as  "  the  harsh  and  unedifying  image  of  the  clay  and 
the  potter."  St.  Paul  '*  was  led  into  difficulty  by  the 
tendency,  which  we  have  already  noticed  as  marking 
his  real  imperfection  both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  writer 
—  tlie  tendency  to  Judaise  "  (page  97).  It  is  hardly 
strange  that  St.  Paul  should  have  Judaised.  He  was 
a  Jew,  a  Pharisee,  familiar  not  merely  with  the  law 
and  the  prophets,  but  also  with  the  Rabbinical  tradi- 
tions, long  before  he  heard  of  Christ.  Conversion 
changes,  or  ought  to  change,  a  man's  purpose  and  mode 
of  life.  It  does  not  affect  the  habits  of  his  mind.  St. 
Paul  wished  to  reconcile  Christianity  with  Judaism, 
not  to  supersede  one  by  the  other.  His  "  tendency  to 
Judaise  "  is  part  of  his  system.  Take  it  away,  and  he 
ceases  to  be  St.  Paul. 

In  the  essay  on  Puritanism  and  the  Church  of 
England  Mr.  Arnold  points  out  (page  120),  ''that  the 
High  Church  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century  were 
Arminian,  that  the  Church  of  England  was  the  strong- 
hold of  Arminianism,  and  that  Arminianism  is  an 
effort  of  man's  practical  good  sense  to  get  rid  of  what 
is  shocking  to  it  in  Calvinism."  And  he  traces  the 
existence  of  Nonconformity  mainly  to  the  fact  that 
the  Church  would  not  *'  put  the  Calvinistic  doctrines 
more  distinctly  into  her  formularies."  This  is  more 
than  doubtful  history.  The  persecuting  policy  of 
Laud,  and  the  Act  of  Uniformity  passed  when  that 
most  Christian  king,  Charles  the  Second,  was  restored 
to  the  throne,  were  the  chief  causes  of  Protestant 
Di.ssent.  Mr.  Arnold  was  fond  of  Butler,  and  cpioted 
him  almost  as  often  as  he  quoted  the  Vulgate.    "  '  The 


124  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

Bible/  said  the  great  bishop,  '  contains  many  truths 
as  yet  undiscovered/  and  in  so  saying  he  passed  sen- 
tence on  every  creed  and  council "  (page  151).  That 
is  an  admirable  application  of  a  profound  truth,  whether 
Butler  would  himself  have  made  it  or  not.  For  if  it 
be  true,  as  Cardinal  Newman  says,  that  we  "  cannot 
halve  the  gospel  of  God's  grace,"  so  neither  can  we 
limit  it.  Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum.  These  words 
of  St.  Augustine  convinced  Newman  that  the  Church 
of  Rome  must  be  in  the  right.  For  that  purpose  Mi-. 
Arnold,  of  course,  rejects  them.  But  he  adopts  them 
in  support  of  his  own  theory  that  religion  implies 
unity.  For  my  part,  I  think  that  the  words  are 
much  nearer  the  truth  if  construed  as  a  classical 
Roman  would  have  construed  them.  When  Horace 
wrote  that  he  was  "  quid  Tiridaten  terreat  unice 
securus,"  he  did  not  mean  that  he  had  infallible 
knowledge  of  what  frightened  Tiridates.  He  meant 
that  he  did  not  care,  which  is  only  too  true  of  the 
world  and  theology.  Mr.  Arnold  defends  the  Church 
of  England  from  the  charge  of  "  not  knowing  her  own 
mind,"  or,  rather,  he  denies  that  it  is  a  charge,  and 
claims  it  is  as  a  merit.  He  pleads  with  eloquence  and 
sincerity  that  doctrinal  differences,  however  funda- 
mental, are  no  ground  for  separation,  and  that  Luther 
did  not  separate  for  any  such  reason,  but  because  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  immoral,  which  was  a  true 
ground,  and  the  only  true  one.  This  idea  of  a  uni- 
versal Church,  with  departure  from  iniquity  for  its 
first  principle,  is  a  very  noble  one.  The  invisible  tie 
which  unites  all  good  men  is  in  some  sort  a  fulfilment 
of  it.  Fully  realised  on  earth  it  is  never  likely  to  be. 
As  Mr.  Jowett  so  beautifully  says  of  Plato's  Republic, 


X.]  MR.   ARNOLD'S  PHILOSOPHY  125 

the  moment  we  seem  to  comprelieud  it,  it  eludes  our 
grasp,  and  at  length  fades  away  into  the  Heavens. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Arnold  knew  that.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  book  to  prove  that  he  did  not  know  it. 

Mr.  Arnold's  "genial  and  somewhat  esoteric  phi- 
losophy," if  I  may  borrow  a  phrase  applied  by  Sir 
George  Trevelyan  to  his  uncle,  is  nowhere  more  com- 
pendiously stated  than  in  Friendshijrs  Garland,  which 
appeared  in  a  complete  form  at  the  beginning  of  1871. 
The  history  of  this  little  book  is  curious.  The  letters 
of  which  it  consists  were  first  printed  in  the  Pall  Mull 
Gazette,  when  that  journal  of  many  vicissitudes  was 
edited  by  ]\Ir.  Frederick  Greenwood.  They  extend 
over  a  period  of  four  years,  from  1866  to  1870,  dealing 
chiefly  with  the  victories  of  Prussia  over  Austria,  and 
of  Germany  over  France.  Attributed  to  a  young 
Prussian,  Arminius  von  Thunder-ten-Tronckh,  whose 
name  is  of  course  taken  from  Candide,  they  really 
represent  Mr.  Arnold's  views  upon  the  characteristic 
deficiencies  of  his  countr3'men.  It  is  a  remarkable 
fact  that,  though  an  unsparing  critic  of  English  foibles, 
and  also  of  the  qualities  upon  which  Englishmen 
particularly  pride  themselves,  he  never  became  un- 
popular. Such  is  the  power  of  urbanity.  The  outer 
public,  the  widest  circle  of  readers,  knew  Matthew 
Arnold  chiefly  from  quotations  in  newspapers,  and 
the  readers  of  the  old  P(dl  Mall  were  of  the  "kid 
glove  persuasion."  ])Ut,  as  he  said  himself,  the  writ- 
ing people  had  a  kindness  for  him  ;  and  even  those  at 
whom  liis  shafts  of  ridicule  were  directed  laughed, 
unless  they  were  translators  of  Homer,  as  heartily  as 
anybody  else.  I  can  myself  (and  so  can  Mr.  George 
Russell)  testify  to  the  fact  that  !Mr.  Sala,  one  of  Mr. 


126  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Arnold's  favourite  butts,  regarded  his  facetious  tor- 
mentor with  friendly  and  respectful  admiration.  This 
was  very  creditable  to  Mr.  Sala,  but  it  was  creditable 
to  Mr.  Arnold  too.  There  was  plenty  of  salt  in  his 
wit,  and  not  much  pepper.  Friendship's  Garland 
is  by  far  the  most  amusing  book  he  ever  wrote,  and, 
indeed,  for  anything  better  of  its  kind  we  must  go 
to  Voltaire.  Yet  nothing  would  induce  Mr.  Arnold  to 
publish  a  second  edition  of  it,  and  for  many  years 
before  his  death  it  was  out  of  print.  He  thought  it 
ephemeral,  as  parts  of  it  no  doubt  are,  and  his  fastidi- 
ous taste  condemned  it  to  oblivion.  Fortunately,  the 
destinies  of  a  book  are  not  under  the  permanent  con- 
trol of  the  author,  and  in  1898  Friendship's  Garland 
was  brought  out  once  more.  The  special  phase  of 
smug,  complacent  Philistine  Liberalism,  at  which  it  is 
chiefly  aimed,  had  ceased  to  be  predominant.  But  the 
fun  is  immortal,  and  the  criticism  deep  as  well  as 
sound.  If  the  book  can  be  said  to  have  a  practical 
moral,  it  is  that  Englishmen  should  practise  the  virtue 
of  obedience,  and  improve  the  education  of  the  middle 
classes.  But  the  charm  of  these  pages,  the  most 
vivacious  that  even  Mr.  Arnold  ever  penned,  lies  in 
the  inimitable  drollness  of  the  social  satire,  and  per- 
haps I  can  hardly  do  better  than  quote  at  full  length 
the  conversation  between  Arminius  and  the  author 
upon  the  justices  at  petty  sessions. 

" '  The  three  magistrates  in  that  inn,'  said  I,  '  are  not 
three  Government  functionaries  all  cut  out  of  one  block  ; 
they  embody  our  whole  national  life ;  —  the  land,  religion, 
commerce,  are  all  represented  by  them.  Lord  Lumpington 
is  a  peer  of  old  family  and  great  estate ;  Esau  Hittall  is  a 
clergyman ;  Mr.  Bottles  is  one  of  our  self-made  middle-class 


X.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S   rillLOSOrilY  127 

men.  Their  politics  are  not  all  of  one  colour,  and  that 
colour  the  Government's.  Lumpington  is  a  constitutional 
Whig ;  Hittall  is  a  benighted  old  Toiy.  As  for  Mr.  Bottles, 
he  is  a  Kailit-al  of  the  purest  water ;  quite  one  of  the  Man- 
chester school.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest  free-traders,  he 
ha.s  always  gone  as  straight  as  an  arrow  about  Reform  ;  he 
is  an  ardent  voluntar}'  in  every  possible  line,  opposed  the 
Ten  Hours'  Bill,  w;us  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Dissenting 
opposition  out  of  Parliament  which  smashed  up  the  educa- 
tion clauses  of  Sir  James  Graham's  Factory  Act  ;  and  he 
paid  the  whole  expenses  of  a  most  important  church-rate 
contest  out  of  his  ovnx  pocket.  And,  finally,  he  looks  for- 
ward to  marrying  his  decea.sed  wife's  sister.  Table,  as  my 
friend  ^Ir.  Grant  Duff  says,  tlie  whole  Liberal  creed,  and  in 
not  a  single  point  of  it  will  you  find  Bottles  tripping.' 
'That  is  all  very  well  as  to  their  politics,'  said  Anninius, 
'but  I  want  to  hear  about  their  education  and  intelligence.' 
'There,  t<x),  I  can  satisfy  you,'  I  answered.  '  Limipington 
was  at  Eton.  Hittall  was  on  the  foundation  at  Charter- 
house, placed  there  by  his  uncle,  a  distinguished  jirelate, 
who  wa.s  one  of  the  tmstecs.  You  know  we  English  have 
no  notion  of  your  bureaucratic  tyranny  of  treating  tiie  a|)- 
pointraents  to  the.se  great  foundations  as  public  patronage, 
ami  ve,sting  them  in  a  responsible  minister;  we  vest  them  in 
independent  magnates,  who  relieve  the  State  of  all  work  and 
responsibility,  and  never  take  a  shilling  of  salarj'  for  their 
trotible.  Hittall  was  the  last  of  six  nephews  nominated  to 
the  Cliarterhouse  by  his  uncle,  this  good  prelate,  who  had 
thoroughly  learnt  the  divine  le,-<son  that  charity  begins  at 
home.'  '  But  I  want  to  know  what  his  nephew  learnt,'  iu- 
ternipted  Anninius,  'and  what  Lonl  Limipington  learnt  at 
EUm.'  'They  foUnwed,'  said  I,  'the  grand,  old,  fortifying, 
cla.s.sical  curriculum.'  'Did  they  know  anything  when  they 
left?'  asked  Anninius.  'I  have  seen  some  longs  and  shorts 
of  Hitt.ill'H,'  said  I,  '  about  the  Calydoni.in  Bour,  whicii  were 
not  Ijad.  But  yoti  surely  don't  need  me  to  tell  you,  Armiiiiu.s, 
that  it  is  ratlier  in  training  and  bracing  the  mind  for  future 
acquisition  —  a  course  of  mental  gymuiustics  we  call  it  —  than 
in  teaching  any  set  thing,  that  the  classical  curriculum  is  so 


128  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [cil\p. 

valuable.'  '  Were  the  minds  of  Lord  Lumpiugton  and  Mr. 
Hittall  much  braced  by  their  mental  gymnastics  1 '  inquired 
Arminius.  '  Well,'  I  answered,  '  during  their  three  years  at 
Oxford  they  were  so  much  occupied  with  Bulliugdon  and 
hunting,  that  there  was  no  great  opportunity  to  judge.  But 
for  my  part  I  have  always  thought  that  their  both  getting 
their  degree  at  last  with  flying  colours,  after  three  weeks  of 
a  famous  coach  for  fast  men,  four  nights  without  going  to 
bed,  and  an  incredible  consumption  of  wet  towels,  strong 
cigars,  and  brandy  and  water,  was  one  of  the  most  astonish- 
ing feats  of  mental  gymnastics  I  ever  heard  of.'  '  That  will 
do  for  the  land  and  the  Church,'  said  Arminius;  'and  now 
let  us  hear  about  commerce.'  '  You  mean  how  Avas  Bottles 
educated  ? '  answered  I.  *  Here  we  get  into  another  line 
altogether,  but  a  very  good  line  in  its  way,  too.  Mr. 
Bottles  was  brought  uj)  at  the  Lycurgus  House  Academy, 
Peckham.  You  are  not  to  suppose  from  the  name  of 
Lycurgus  that  any  Latin  and  G-reek  was  taught  in  the 
establishment ;  the  name  only  indicates  the  moral  discipline, 
and  the  strenuous  earnest  character,  imparted  there.  As  to 
the  instruction,  the  thoughtful  educator  who  was  principal 
of  the  Lycm-gus  House  Academy,  —  Archimedes  Silverpump, 
Ph.D.,  you  must  have  heard  of  him  in  Germany  1  —  had 
modern  views.  "  We  must  be  men  of  our  age,"  he  used  to 
say.  "  Useful  knowledge,  living  languages,  and  the  forming 
of  the  mind  through  observation  and  experiment,  these  are 
the  fundamental  articles  of  my  educational  creed."  Or  as  I 
have  heard  his  pupil  Bottles  put  it  in  his  expansive  moments 
after  dinner:  "Original  man,  Silverpump!  fine  mind!  fine 
system.  None  of  your  antiquated  rubbish  —  all  practical 
work  —  latest  discoveries  in  science  —  mind  constantly  kept 
excited — lots  of  interesting  experiments  —  lights  of  all  colours 
—  fizz  !  fizz  !  bang  !  bang  !  That 's  what  I  call  forming  a 
man  !  "  '  '  And  pray,'  cried  Arminius  impatiently,  '  what 
sort  of  man  do  you  suppose  this  infernal  quack  really  formed 
in  your  precious  friend  Mr.  Bottles?'  'Well,'  I  replied,  'I 
hardly  know  how  to  answer  that  question.  Bottles  has 
certainly  made  an  immense  fortune ;  but  as  to  Silverpump's 
effect  on  his  mind,  whether  it  was  from  any  faidt  in  the 


X.]  MR.   ARNOLD'S    rillLOSOPHY  129 

Lycurgiis  House  system,  wliethcr  it  was  that  with  a  sturdy 
self-reliance  thorouglily  English,  Bottles,  ever  since  he  quitted 
Silvcrpunip.  left  his  mind  wliolly  to  itself,  his  daily  news- 
paper, and  the  Particular  Baptist  minister  under  wiiom  he 
sat,  or  from  whatever  cause  it  was,  certainly  his  mind,  (/ud 

mind '   'You  need  not  go  on,'  interrupted  Armiuius,  '  I 

know  what  that  man's  mind,  qud  mind,  is,  well  enough.'  " 

I  do  not  think  that  ^Matthew  Arnold  ever  surpassed 
this  dialogue.  The  only  criticism  I  should  make  upon 
it  is  that  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill  got  upon  his 
nerves,  and  that  he  always  seemed  to  regard  it  as  a 
compulsory  measure.  Public  opinion,  however,  was  to 
some  extent  with  him,  for  it  has  not  yet  become  law. 


CPIAPTER  XI 

MR.  Arnold's  theology 

If  any  formal  theologian  should  cast  a  roving  eye 
over  this  book,  or  over  this  chapter,  he  will  probably 
deny  that  Mr.  Arnold  had  any  theology  at  all.  For 
just  as  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  ''  sought  vainly  in  him  a 
system  of  philosophy  with  principles  coherent,  inter- 
dependent, subordinate,  and  derivative,"  so  Mr.  Glad- 
stone observed,  with  less  pedantry,  and  more  humour, 
that  he  combined  a  sincere  devotion  to  the  Christian 
religion  with  a  faculty  for  presenting  it  in  such  a  form 
as  to  be  recognisable  neither  by  friend  nor  foe.  This 
is  a  more  "  damning  sentence,"  to  adopt  Mr.  Arnold's 
own  phrase,  than  Mr.  Harrison's.  It  is  indeed  the  best 
and  tersest  criticism  ever  passed  upon  Mr.  Arnold's 
theological  writings.  I  am  not  in  the  least  inclined 
to  agree  with  Mr.  Russell,  who  dismisses  those  writ- 
ings in  a  sigh,  or  with  Professor  Saintsbury,  who  dis- 
poses of  them  with  a  sneer.  I  do  not  understand  how 
a  real  scholar  like  Mr.  Saintsbury  can  think,  that  unless 
the  Fourth  Gospel  is  "  revelation,"  its  date  is  imma- 
terial, whether  that  date  were  the  first  century,  the 
fourth  century,  or  the  fourteenth.  On  the  contrary, 
it  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Arnold  set  before  himself  a 
perfectly  legitimate,  and  even  laudable  object,  but  that 
with  many  brilliant  qualifications  there  were  fatal 
obstacles  to  his   success.     The  date  of  the  Gospels, 

130 


CHAP.  XI. J  MR.    ARNOLD'S  THEOLOGY  131 

and  the  history  of  their  composition,  are  not  merely 
interesting  in  themselves,  but  absolutely  essential  to 
the  estimate  of  their  historical  value.  Nobody  says 
that  the  lirst  Decade  of  Livy  is  "revelation."  But  its 
almost  total  worthlessness  as  history  is  mainly,  thougli 
not  entirely,  due  to  the  distance  between  the  age  of 
Augustus  and  the  age  of  the  kings. 

'Mv.  Arnold's  Biblical  criticism  Avas  not  substantially 
original,  lie  availed  himself  of  researches  made  by 
more  learned  men,  such  as  Ewald,  Gesenius,  and 
Kuenen.  His  treatment  of  the  subject  was  his  own, 
and  it  was  not  in  all  respects  fortunate.  St.  Paul  (md 
Protestantism  is  not  really  a  theological  book.  Writ- 
ing on  the  20th  of  September  1872  to  his  friend 
M.  Fontanes,  a  French  pastor  of  the  broad  school,  he 
says :  "  En  parlant  de  St.  Paul,  je  n'ai  pas  parle  en 
theologien,  mais  en  homme  de  lettres  mecontent  de 
la  tres  mauvaise  crititpxe  litteraire  qu'on  appliquait 
a  un  grand  esprit;  si  j'avais  parle  en  theologien  on 
ne  m'eut  pas  dcout^."  The  author  of  Literature  and 
Dogma  was  certainly  heard,  and  heard  Avith  attention, 
though  not  always  with  approval.  Before,  hoAvever, 
dealing  with  that  work,  I  must  mention  some  pre- 
liminary matters.  In  the  same  letter  from  which  I 
have  just  quoted,  Avritten  throughout  in  French,  ^Ir. 
Arnold  refers  to  a  little  work  on  Isaiah  just  published, 
wliich  was  succeeding  "well  enough."  The  success 
was  not  permanent,  nor  Avas  it  of  the  kind  wliicli 
Mr.  Arnold  especially  desired.  77/e  Great  Prophecy 
of  Israel's  Restoration  was  intended  for  use  in  ele- 
mentary schools.  Sir  Joshua  Fitch  informs  us  that 
it  has  never  be<'n  ust-d  in  a  single  school.  It  has  long 
been  out  of  print,  and  is  now  exceedingly  scarce.     It 


132  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

contains  the  last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah,  with 
a  long  explanatory  preface,  rather  copious  notes,  and 
a  few  changes  in  the  English  of  the  Authorised  Ver- 
sion. Mr.  Arnold's  purpose  was  to  help  English 
school-children  in  reading  these  wonderful  chapters 
"without  being  frequently  stopped  by  passages  of 
which  the  meaning  is  almost  or  quite  unintelligible." 
The  little  book  appeared  before  the  Revised  Version 
of  the  Old  Testament  was  finished,  but  it  cannot  be 
said  to  have  been  superseded  by  that  translation,  for 
one  is  almost  as  dead  as  the  other.  The  Authorised 
Version  of  the  Bible  has  defects  as  well  as  beauties, 
among  which  the  reckless  and  indiscriminate  use  of 
pronouns  is  perhaps  the  most  prominent.  But  it  has 
a  hold  upon  the  English  people  which  nothing  can 
shake,  and  Dr.  Newman  felt  its  loss  more  acutely 
than  anything  else  when  he  left  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. "Who  hath  believed  our  report?"  maybe  an 
obvious  mistranslation.  But  there  is  no  more  chance 
of  getting  rid  of  it  than  of  expunging  "  I  know  that 
my  Redeemer  liveth  "  on  similar  grounds  from  the 
Book  of  Job.  Still  it  is  a  good  thing  to  read  these 
chapters  as  a  whole,  and  they  have  no  connection 
whatsoever  with  the  rest  of  Isaiah. 

In  February  1872  Matthew  Arnold's  second  son 
died  at  Harrow,  aged  eighteen,  and  was  buried  with 
his  two  brothers  at  Laleham.  The  following  year  he 
removed  from  Harrow,  which  had  too  many  sad  asso- 
ciations for  Mrs.  Arnold,  and  settled  at  Pain's  Hill, 
Cobham,  Surrey,  which  was  his  home  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life. 

The  publication  of  Literature  and  Dogma  in  1S73 
marks   a  distinct    and    definite   epoch  of    Matthew 


XI.]  MR.    AUXOLirS  THEOLOGY  133 

Arnold's  life.  With  this  book  he  severed  himself  from 
orthodox  Christianity,  and   even  from  Unitarianism 
as  commonly  understood.     He  had,  indeed,  a  curious 
dislike  of  Unitarians,  -whom  he  called  Socinians,  -which 
he  may  have  inherited  from  his  father.     Yet  his  own 
creed,  if  creed  it  can  be  called,  would  have  horrified 
Dr.  Arnold  far  more  than  theirs.     For  he  rejected  not 
merely  miracles,  but  the  personality  of  God.     Nor,  it 
must  be  admitted,  did  he  always  express  himself  in 
reverent  language,  and  with  a  due  regard  for  the  feel- 
ings of  others.    He  gave  intense  pain  to  a  distinguished 
philanthropist,  whose  own  beliefs  were  of  the  straitest, 
by  comparing  him  with  the  Persons  of  the  Trinity,  and 
though  he  afterwards  withdrew  this   unseemly   jest, 
singularly  devoid  of  humour  as  it  was,  the  bad  impres- 
sion it  created  remained,  because  it  was  the  index  to 
a  frame  of  mind.     The  reference  to  "  the  Bishops  of 
Winchester   and   Gloucester"    was   more  pardonable, 
because  it  was  founded  on  a  phrase  or  phrases  used 
by  themselves.     But  it  was  in  bad  taste,  and  the  need- 
less repetition  of  it  is  most  wearisome.     Repetition  is 
the  besetting  sin  of  Mr.  Arnold's  later  prose.     It  was 
ever  the  fault  of  our  English  nation,  said  the  man  who 
knew  the  English  nation  best,  that  when  they  have 
a  good  thing  they  make  it  too  common.     '^Ir.  Arnold 
happened  early  in  life  to   stamp   one   or  two  happy 
expressions  upon  English  literature.     He  was  thereby 
encouraged  to  say  a  thing  over  and  over  again  merely 
because  he  thought  it  particularly  good  himself.   That 
is  bad  literature,  and  even  bad  journalism,  though  it 
is,  alas,  very  common.     Another  tiresome  trick  Avhich 
grew  upon  ^fr.  Arnold  with  advancing  years,  was  the 
use   of  the   first   person   plural  for   the  first  person 


134  MATTHEW  AKNOLD  [chap. 

singular,  "  We  "  in  a  leading  article  may  be  defended 
because  an  article  sometimes  expresses  the  writer's 
opinion  as  well  as  the  editor's.  "  We "  in  a  book  is 
mere  affectation,  unless  there  are  more  authors  than 
one. 

These,  however,  are  superficial  criticisms,  though 
necessary  to  be  made.  The  book  is  one  of  great  power 
and  beauty,  saturated  with  religious  sentiment,  and 
inculcating  the  loftiest  standard  of  morals.  It  is,  per- 
haps, an  instance  of  Nemesis  that  for  once  Mr.  Arnold's 
humour  fails  him.  The  University  of  Cambridge  pro- 
vided him  with  an  admirable  opportunity  by  setting 
as  a  subject  for  a  prize  poem  the  words  of  Lucretius, 
Hominum  diimmque  voluptas,  alma  Venus.  But  he  did 
not  rise  to  it.  The  attempt  is  a  failure.  The  object  of 
the  book,  on  the  other  hand,  is  wholly  serious,  and 
wholly  laudable.  It  is  to  free  Christianity  from  excres- 
cences which,  in  Mr.  Arnold's  opinion,  had  corrupted 
the  essence  and  marred  the  utility  of  Christ's  teaching. 
The  quotations  on  the  title-page  indicate  its  scope. 
They  are  from  the  Vulgate,  from  Senancour,  the 
author  of  Ohermann,  and  from  Bishop  Butler.  Butler 
argues,  in  his  weighty  and  dignified  manner,  that  fresh 
discoveries  may  be  made  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
Bible,  just  as  they  are  made  in  the  field  of  natural 
science.  Butler  was  not  quite  so  orthodox  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  would  have  us  suppose. 

No  candid  mind  could,  I  think,  find  any  fault  with 
the  aim  of  Mr.  Arnold's  theological  writings.  Goethe 
told  Eckermann  that  he  thought  his  books  had  given 
men  a  new  and  enlarged  sense  of  freedom.  That  was 
Mr.  Arnold's  desire,  and  it  is  surely  a  laudable  one. 
The   discussion  of  his  methods  is  a  delicate  task.     I 


XI.]  MR.    ARNOLDS   THEOLOGY  136 

know  the  heat  of  the  fires  which  are  banked  beneath 
those  treacherous  ashes.  ^Mr.  Arnohl  had  become 
alarmed  by  the  attitude  of  tlie  woi-king  classes  towards 
the  Christian  faith.  He  did  not  know  very  much 
about  the  working  classes,  but  some  highly  cultivated 
artisans  read  his  works,  and  corresponded  with  him. 
From  them  he  gathered  that  the  cream  of  their  order, 
the  intellectual  aristocracy  of  labour,  were  rejecting 
all  religion  because  they  could  not  believe  in  miracles, 
or  in  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  He  thought 
it  a  grievous  thing  that  people  should  squabble  over 
such  a  question  as  disestablishment,  while  the  very 
existence  of  religion  itself  was  at  stake.  He  therefore 
proceeded  to  set  forth  his  own  ideas  of  what  reason- 
able men  might  hold,  and  pious  men  might  abandon. 
Popular  theolog}"  rested  on  a  mistaken  conception  of 
the  Bible  as  a  scientific  work,  whereas  the  Bible  was 
literary,  not  scientific,  and  could  not  be  broken  up 
into  propositions,  like  a  manual  of  logic.  Eeligion 
was  concerned  with  conduct,  and  conduct  he  quaintly 
defined  as  three-fourths  of  human  life.  Nothing  was 
so  easy  to  understand  as  conduct,  though  nothing  was 
harder  than  always  to  do  right.  The  truth  of  religion 
was  not  to  be  proved  by  morals,  nor  by  metaphysics, 
but  by  personal  and  practical  experiment.  "He  that 
doeth  my  will  shall  know  of  the  doctrine."  This  view 
was  not  original.  Among  ^Ir.  Arnold's  own  contem- 
poraries, Dr.  Martineau,  a  member  of  the  despised 
sect,  was  never  tired  of  urging  it.  The  definition  of 
religion  as  "  morality  touched  by  emotion  "is  happy, 
and  the  most  orthodox  Christian  might  accept  it,  so 
far  as  it  goes. 

But    Mr.    Arnold  called  upon  us  to  reject  a  good 


130  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

deal  in  the  hope  of  saving  the  rest.  The  proposition 
that  "  the  God  of  the  Universe  is  a  Person "  he  set 
aside  as  unprofitable  and  mischievous.  God  was  the 
Eternal,  and  the  Eternal  was  the  enduring  power,  not 
ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness.  Therefore 
Mr.  Arnold,  in  quoting  the  Bible,  substituted  "  the 
Eternal "  for  "  the  Lord,"  which  he  regarded,  Heaven 
knows  why,  as  meaning  "  a  magnified  and  non-natural 
man."  The  effect  upon  the  ordinary  reader,  who 
knows  the  Authorised  Version  almost  by  heart,  is  like 
suddenly  swallowing  a  fish-bone.  Mr.  Arnold  seems  to 
have  been  pleased  with  "  the  Eternal "  from  the  mouths 
of  boys  and  girls  in  the  Jewish  schools  he  inspected. 
But  he  forgot  that,  to  say  nothing  of  other  considera- 
tions, in  stately  and  rhythmical  English  three  syl- 
lables are  very  different  from  one.  "  Der  Aberglaube 
ist  die  Poesie  des  Lebens,"  said  Goethe ;  — ''  Extra  be- 
lief is  the  Poetry  of  Life."  Mr.  Arnold,  who  cites  this 
passage  with  approval,  nevertheless  proposes  to  get  rid 
of  the  poetry  by  the  rationalism  of  faith.  He  points 
out  that  a  belief  in  the  nearness  of  the  Second  Advent 
was  universal  among  early  Christians,  including  the 
Apostles,  and  that  some  of  the  words  attributed  to 
Christ  can  hardly  be  construed  in  any  other  sense. 
He  shows  that  St.  Paul  interpreted  Hebrew  prophecy 
in  a  manner  which  will  not  bear  examination,  that 
Christ  was  far  above  His  reporters,  who  may  possibly 
have  misunderstood  Him,  and  that  the  Zeit-Geist,  the 
Time-Spirit,  has  made  belief  in  miracles  impossible. 
"  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you  "  was  the  essence 
of  the  true  gospel.  The  method  and  secret  of  Jesus 
were  repentance  and  peace.  He  "  restored  the  intui- 
tion "  which   belonged   to   Israel,  though   what   this 


XI.]  MR.    ARXOLD'S   THEOLOGY  137 

intuition  is  does  not  very  clearly  appear.  "God  is 
a  spirit "  means  "  God  is  an  influence,"  the  influence 
■which  preserves  us  against  faults  of  temper,  and  faults 
of  sensuality.  The  supposed  variance  between  St. 
Paul  and  St.  James  is  a  mistake  (here  INIr.  Arnold  be- 
comes unexpectedly  orthodox).  "Works  without  faith 
are  as  futile  as  faith  without  works.  ''Neither  cir- 
cumcision availeth  anything,  nor  uncircumcision,  but 
the  keeping  of  the  Commandments  of  God." 

To  all  which  it  may  of  coui-se  be  said,  that  'Mr. 
Arnold  could  not  pick  and  choose.  Christ's  teaching 
must  be  taken  as  a  whole,  or  as  we  have  it.  If  He 
did  not  say,  *'  Go  ye  and  teach  all  nations,"  how  do  we 
know  that  He  said,  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the 
life  "  ?  If  He  did  not  say,  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  I 
will  build  it  again  in  three  days,"  how  do  we  know 
that  He  said,  "  Blessed  are  the  meek  "  ?  Once  begin 
to  tamper  with  the  record,  and  you  saw  the  branch  on 
which  you  are  sitting  between  yourself  and  the  tree. 
According  to  this  emphatic  and  uncritical  but  not 
illogical  creed,  the  whole  of  the  Xew  Testament  must 
stand  or  fall  together.  The  resurrection  cannot  indeed 
be  put  on  the  same  footing  as  the  crucifixion,  because 
the  crucifixion  is  in  Tacitus.  The  miracle  of  the  Gad- 
arene  swine  cannot  be  bracketed  with  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  because  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  must 
liave  been  composed  by  some  one,  though  the  swine 
never  existed  at  all,  or  never  left  their  pastures.  But 
unless  we  believe  that  Christ  said  exactly  what  is 
attributed  to  Ilini  in  the  gospels  at  the  precise  time 
and  in  the  precise  place  there  given,  we  must  regard 
Him  a.s  a  purely  mythioril  personage.  .Mr.  Arnold 
would  have  replied  that  Christ  did  not  speak  Greek, 


138  MATTHEW  AIINOLD  [chap. 

the  most  metaphysical,  but  Aramaic,  the  plainest  of 
languages ;  that  ideas  have  therefore  been  imputed  to 
Him  wliich  He  never  intended;  that  the  authority  of 
the  sayings  reported  to  have  been  uttered  after  His 
death  cannot  be  as  high  as  if  that  event  had  not 
occurred ;  that  both  the  date  and  the  authorship  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  are  obscure ;  and  that  it  is  a  function 
of  true  criticism  to  reject  particular  expressions  incon- 
sistent with  ascertained  character  or  style.  He  might 
have  materially  strengthened  his  position  (I  do  not  say 
that  he  would  have  established  it)  by  a  comparison  of 
Christianity  and  Buddhism  as  they  originally  were 
with  what  they  afterwards  became. 

Some  of  Mr.  Arnold's  judgments  are  remarkably 
penetrating  and  shrewd.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the 
description  of  Frederick  Maurice,  "  that  pure  and  de- 
vout spirit,  of  whom,  however,  the  truth  must  at  last 
be  said,  that  in  theology  he  passed  his  life  beating  the 
bush  with  deep  emotion,  and  never  starting  the  hare." 
So,  too,  of  the  three  creeds.  It  may  be  irreverent,  but 
it  is  exceedingly  clever  from  Mr.  Arnold's  point  of 
view,  to  call  them  popular  science,  learned  science,  and 
learned  science  with  a  strong  dash  of  temper.  To  Mr. 
Arnold  all  creeds  were  anathema.  He  could  not  away 
with  them.  The  Apostles'  was  as  bad  as  the  Nicene, 
and  the  Nicene  no  better  than  the  Athanasian.  Yet 
that  he  never  lost  his  hold  upon  vital  religion  is  surely 
clear  from  the  fine  passage  on  the  102nd  page  of  the 
first  edition,  where  he  says  that  though  religion  makes 
for  men's  happiness,  it  does  not  rest  upon  that  as  a 
motive,  but  ^'  finds  a  far  surer  ground  in  personal 
devotion  to  Christ,  who  brought  the  doctrine  to  His 
disciples  and  made  a  passage  for  it  into  their  hearts ; 


XI.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S   THEOLOGY  130 

in  believing  that  Christ  is  come  from  God,  following 
Chi-ist,  loving  Christ.  And  in  the  happiness  which 
this  believing  in  Him,  following  Him,  and  loving 
Him  gives,  it  finds  the  mightiest  of  sanctions."  Lit- 
erature and  Dogma  never  rises  to  the  level  of  Ecce 
Homo  either  in  substance  or  in  style.  It  is  less  high, 
less  deep,  less  penetrating,  less  sympathetic.  But 
its  moral  and  intellectual  honesty  is  stamped  upon 
every  page. 

The  storm  which  raged  round  Literature  and  Dogma 
found  an  echo  even  in  the  family  circle.  He  had  to 
defend  himself  to  his  sister  Fanny,  and  he  did  so  in 
words  as  unquestionably  dignified  as  they  are  obvi- 
ously sincere.  "  There  is  a  levity,"  he  says  {Letters, 
vol.  ii.  page  120),  "  which  is  altogether  evil ;  but  to  treat 
miracles  and  the  common  anthropomorphic  ideas  of  God 
as  what  one  may  lose  and  yet  keep  one's  hope,  courage, 
and  joy,  as  what  are  not  really  matters  of  life  and 
death  in  the  keeping  or  losing  of  them,  this  is  desirable 
and  necessary,  if  one  holds,  as  I  do,  that  the  common 
anthropomorphic  idea  of  God  and  the  reliance  on 
miracles  must  and  will  inevitably  pass  away."  That 
is  an  accurate  summary  of  ^rr.  Arnold's  position,  which 
was  further  developed  in  God  and  the  Bible  (1875). 
This  work,  reprinted  from  the  Contemporary  Review,  is 
a  sequel  to  Literature  and  Dogma,  and  a  reply  to  its 
critics.  Tliere  is  no  levity  in  God  and  the  Bible,  nor  is 
it  entirely  destructive.  For  while  the  first  part  aims 
at  separating  Cliristianity  from  the  God  of  IMiraclcs 
and  the  God  of  Metaphysics,  the  second  part  is  directed 
against  those  German  Rationalists  wlio  regard  the 
Fourtli  (Jospel  as  an  ehiborate  fiction  in  the  style  of 
Plato.     "  Koligif)!!,"  says  Lord  8alis1)ury  in  liis  incisive 


140  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

•way,  "can  no  more  be  separated  from  dogma  than 
light  from  the  sun."  And  on  this  point  Mr,  Gladstone 
would  have  completely  agreed  with  him.  But  even 
the  rare  concurrence  of  two  political  opposites  cannot 
alter  the  fact  that  in  all  ages  of  the  world's  history 
dogma  has  been  a  matter  of  indifference,  or  even  of 
active  dislike,  to  profoundly  religious  minds.  To 
them  Mr.  Arnold  appealed  without  the  fervent  piety 
of  Archbishop  Leighton,  but  at  the  same  time  wdth  an 
earnest,  almost  passionate,  desire  to  save  spirituality 
from  the  onAvard  rush  of  materialism.  Of  the  Eu- 
hemeristic  method,  which  makes  merely  quantitative 
concession,  he  speaks  with  scorn.  "  It  is  as  if  we  were 
startled  by  the  extravagance  of  supposing  Cinderella's 
fairy  godmother  to  have  actually  changed  the  pumpkin 
into  a  coach  and  six,  but  should  suggest  that  she 
really  did  change  it  into  a  one-horse  cab."  But  in  his 
metaphysical  chapter  he  involves  himself  in  specu- 
lations almost  as  fanciful.  He  advises  his  disciples, 
the  readers  who  ran  Literature  and  Dogma  through  so 
many  editions  in  so  short  a  time,  not  to  use  the  word 
"  being,"  or  any  of  its  tenses,  when  they  speak  about 
God.  For  the  Greek  verb  dju,  it  seems,  is  derived  from 
a  Sanskrit  root  which  signifies  the  act  of  breathing, 
and  is  purely  phaeuomenal  in  the  proper  sense  of  that 
much  abused  term.  But  this  is  like  the  discovery, 
true  or  fancied,  that  the  word  God  means  "  shining." 
Qui  hceret  in  litera  hceret  in  cortice.  Etymology  only 
proves  itself.  Mr.  Arnold  makes  great  play  with  the 
criticism  that  Literature  and  Dogma  was  wanting  in 
"vigour  and  rigour."  But  he  certainly  disposes  of 
Descartes's  Cogito,  ergo  sum  in  a  rigorous  and  vigor- 
ous fashion  enough.     Self-consciousness  is  more  than 


XI.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S  THEOLOGY  141 

breathing,  and  no  mere  philologist  can  explain  it  away. 
Mr.  Arnold  is  on  much  firmer  ground  when  he  deals 
with  the  historic  materials  for  the  life  of  Christ. 
*•'  The  record,"  he  says,  "  when  we  first  get  it,  has 
passed  through  at  least  half  a  century  or  more  of  oral 
tradition,  and  through  more  than  one  written  account." 
^[r.  Arnold's  view,  and  since  his  time  the  learned 
Professor  Ilarnack's  ^^ew,  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is 
that  St.  John  was  the  original  source  from  which  the 
sayings  attributed  to  Christ  in  it  come,  but  that  he 
did  not  write  the  Gospel,  that  he  was  not  responsible 
for  the  form  of  it,  and  that  spurious  sayings,  or  logia, 
of  Christ  were  mixed  up  with  those  which  are  gen- 
uine. ''  We  might,"  says  Mr.  Arnold,  "  go  through 
the  Fourth  Gospel  chapter  by  chapter,  and  endeavour 
to  assign  to  each  and  all  of  the  log  fa  in  it  their 
right  character — to  determine  what  in  them  is  prob- 
ably Jesus,  and  what  is  the  combining,  repeating, 
and  expanding  Greek  editor.  But  this  would  be  for- 
eign to  our  object."  Vigorous  and  rigorous  enough. 
But  nobody,  not  even  Professor  Harnack,  can  know  as 
much  as  that.  This  Greek  editor  is  an  imaginary 
personage.  He  may  have  existed,  or  he  may  not. 
Mr.  Arnold's  service  to  Biblical  criticism  lies  not  in 
inventing  him,  but  in  showing  how  much  more  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible  is  a  literary  than  a  meta- 
physical task. 

Lfist  Essays  on  ClinrrJi  nud  ReJlcjhn  (1877)  do  what 
their  name  implies.  They  close  the  chapter  of  Mr. 
Arnold's  theology,  and  may  fitly  close  this  chapter  of 
mine.  They  are  chiefly  interesting  for  a  thoughtful 
and  ap])ro|)riate  study  of  Bishop  Butler,  originally 
delivered  in  the  form  of  two  lectures  to  the  Philo- 


142  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

sophical  Institution  at  Edinburgh.  The  effect  of  these 
essays  upon  my  mind  is  not  precisely  what  Mr.  Arnold 
intended  it  to  be.  "  Bishop  Butler  and  the  Zeit-Geist " 
he  called  them.  The  Zeit-Geist  in  Mr.  Arnold's  hands, 
like  the  "  !fitre  Supreme  "  in  Robespierre's,  began  to  be 
a  bore.  The  picture  of  the  great  Bishop,  or  rather  of 
the  great  man  who  happened  to  be  a  BishojD,  drawn 
with  Mr.  Arnold's  winning  and  prepossessing  grace, 
allures  and  at  the  same  time  awes  the  beholder.  It 
helps  me  at  least  to  understand  the  supremacy  of 
Butler  at  Oxford  in  Mr.  Arnold's  time,  and  in  Mr. 
Gladstone's.  True  it  is  that  Butler  did  not  grapple, 
did  not  pretend  to  grapple,  with  the  root  of  the  ques- 
tion. He  assumed  not  merely  the  existence  of  God, 
but  the  existence  of  a  future  life.  He  laid  himself 
open  to  the  logically  unanswerable  reply  of  Hume, 
that  more  cannot  be  put  into  the  conclusion  than  is 
contained  in  the  premisses,  and  that  therefore  a  world 
constructed  by  analogy  cannot  be  better  than  this, 
though  it  may  be  as  good.  It  is  possible  that  Butler 
has  made  other  people  atheists  besides  James  Mill. 
Mr.  Arnold  says,  truly  enough,  that  the  Analogy  was 
aimed  at  the  mob  of  freethinkers  and  loose  livers  who 
frequented  Queen  Caroline's  routs,  to  whom  Shaftes- 
bury's Characteristics  were  the  last  word  of  philosophy. 
But  if  we  put  aside  all  that,  what  a  wonderful  figure 
remains.  "To  me,"  says  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  "an 
episcopal  philosopher  is  a  philosopher  and  nothing 
more ;  a  dead  bishop  is  a  dead  man."  Granted.  But 
what  a  man,  and  what  a  philosopher,  is  Butler.  He 
walked  through  the  gay  throng  at  St.  James's,  he 
preached  to  the  fashionable  congregation  at  the  Rolls' 
Chapel  like  a  being   from   another  world.     He   paid 


XI.]  MR.   ARNOLD'S   THEOLOGY  143 

them  no  compliments.  He  offered  them  no  congratu- 
lations. He  told  them  the  realities  of  things.  "  Things 
are  what  they  are,  and  the  consequences  of  them  Avill 
be  what  they  will  be ;  why  then  should  we  desire  to  be 
deceived  ? ''  Like  Pascal,  he  was  profoundly  impressed 
with  the  littleness  of  human  nature,  and  the  vanity  of 
all  earthly  concerns.  He  exposed  with  pitiless  accu- 
racy the  springs  and  motives  of  men's  conduct.  With- 
out a  trace  of  humour,  he  made  frivolity  ridiculous. 
He  almost  worshipped  reason.  Reason,  he  said,  was 
the  only  faculty  by  which  we  could  judge  the  claims 
even  of  Revelation  itself.  Yet  this  cold,  passionless 
critic  was  fidl  of  benevolence,  abounding  in  charity  to 
the  poor,  and  so  devoted  to  works  of  mystical  piety 
that  he  earned,  or  at  least  acquired,  the  reputation  of 
a  Papist.     But  this  is  not  a  life  of  Bishop  Butler. 

In  the  preface  to  this  volume  Mr.  Arnold  is  more 
than  usually  explicit  about  his  own  creed.  "  I  believe," 
he  says,  "  that  Christianity  will  survive  because  of  its 
natural  truth.  Those  who  fancied  that  they  had  done 
with  it,  those  who  had  thrown  it  aside  because  what 
was  presented  to  them  under  its  name  was  so  unre- 
ceivable,  will  have  to  return  to  it  again,  and  to  learn 
it  better."  He  pleads  eloquently  for  some  "great 
soul "  to  arise,  and  purge  the  ore  of  Christianity  from 
the  dross.  "  But,"  as  he  adds  somewhat  bitterly,  "  to 
rule  over  the  moment  and  the  credulous  has  more 
attraction  than  to  work  for  the  future  and  the  sane." 
It  is,  however,  sometimes  rather  difficult  to  know  what 
he  would  be  at.  For  in  his  address  to  the  London 
clergy  at  Sion  College  he  gravely  argues  that  the  State 
sliould  adopt  "some  form  of  religion  or  other  —  that 
which  seems  best  suited  to  the  majority."    The  London 


144  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap.  xi. 

clergy  showed  him  no  little  kindness,  and  politely 
made  as  though  they  agreed  with  him.  But  they 
must  have  been  a  little  staggered  by  this  Parliamentary 
view  of  the  faith.  It  reminds  one  of  the  American 
who  said,  in  the  course  of  a  discussion  upon  eternal 
punishment,  "  Well,  all  I  can  say  is,  that  our  people 
would  never  stand  it." 

A  higher  conception  of  the  Established  Church  may 
be  found  on  page  37  of  these  Essays,  where  he  says 
that  it  "  is  to  be  considered  as  a  national  Christian 
society  for  the  promotion  of  goodness,  to  which  a  man 
cannot  but  wish  well,  and  in  which  he  might  rejoice  to 
minister."  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  write  for  those  who 
were  satisfied  with  the  popular  theology.  He  wrote 
for  those  who  were  not.  His  object  was  not  to  disturb 
any  one's  faith,  but  to  convince  those  who  could  not 
believe  in  the  performance  of  miracles,  or  the  fulfilment 
of  prophecies,  that  they  need  not  therefore  become  ma- 
terialists. He  could  quote  many  texts  on  his  side,  as 
for  instance,  "  Except  I  do  signs  and  wonders  ye  will 
not  believe,"  and  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  The  occasional  flippancy  of  Literature  and 
Dogma,  however  deplorable,  is  a  small  thing  compared 
with  the  warfare  against  ignorance  and  grossness 
which  Mr.  Arnold  never  ceased  to  wage. 


CHAPTER  XTI 


MR.  Arnold's  politics 


Ix  politics  ^Eatthew  Arnold  was  a  Liberal  Conservative, 
which,  as  Lord  John  Russell  remarked,  says  in  seven 
syllables  what  "Whig  says  in  one.  His  patron,  Lord 
Lansdowne,  was  a  ^Vhig  of  the  purest  water,  equally 
afraid  of  moving  and  of  standing  still.  Mr.  Arnold 
himself  was  never  a  candidate  for  Parliainent.  Even  if 
he  had  been  disposed  to  take  part  in  the  "  Thyestean 
banquet  of  clap-trap,"  his  position  as  a  member  of  the 
Civil  Service  would  have  prevented  him.  JJut  his 
practical  interest  in  politics,  always  keen,  increased 
with  age,  and  during  the  year  before  his  death  he  con- 
tributed to  the  Xineteenlh  Century  a  series  of  articles 
on  the  Session  of  1887.  When  he  left  off  dabbling  in 
theology,  politics  absorbed  him  more  and  more.  They 
promised  quicker  returns.  "  Perhaps,"  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Grant  Duff,  on  the  22nd  of  August  1879,  *'  perhaps 
we  shall  end  our  days  in  the  tail  of  a  rising  current  of 
popular  religion,  both  ritual  and  dogmatic "  With 
that  feeling,  which  I  suspect  was  stronger  than  the 
expression  of  it,  jNIr.  Arnold  turned  to  more  mundane 
matters.  No  one  knew  better  how  to  deliver  himself, 
as  Shakespeare  says,  like  a  man  of  this  world.  His 
long  experience  of  official  work  had  made  him 
thoroughly  practical.  He  had  received  from  nature  a 
keen  eye  f(jr  the  central  ])oint  of  a  case,  ami  a  puwov 

L  115 


146  IVIATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

of  lucid  exposition  which  is  the  most  formidable  of  all 
arguments.  Of  working  men,  as  I  have  said,  he  knew 
very  little,  though  many  of  them  read  and  appreciated 
his  books.  But  with  the  upper  and  middle  classes  of 
society,  their  principles  and  prejudices,  their  faults  and 
failings,  he  was  thoroughly  well  acquainted.  Nothing 
in  his  life  is  more  honourable  to  him  than  the  persistent 
efforts  Avhich  he  made,  for  more  than  twenty  years,  to 
get  a  decent  system  of  secondary  education  established 
in  this  country.  Only  now,  when  he  has  been  dead 
nearly  fourteen  years,  is  this  question  being  really 
taken  up  in  a  practical  spirit  by  a  responsible  Govern- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  he  seldom  mentions  political 
dissenters,  whose  importance  he  recognised,  except  in 
terms  of  caricature ;  and  of  the  great  driving  force 
which,  apart  from  his  more  conspicuous  accomplish- 
ments, Mr.  Gladstone  wielded,  he  had  a  most  imper- 
fect idea.  He  took  the  superficial  view  of  Whig  coteries 
that  the  author  of  the  Irish  Land  Acts,  and  the  great- 
est financier  of  the  age,  was  a  rhetorical  sophist,  a 
man  of  words  and  phrases,  not  of  business  and  its 
execution.  This  view  finds  frequent  utterance  in  the 
second  volume  of  the  published  Letters.  The  piety  or 
prudence  of  Mr.  George  Russell  has  in  most  instances 
suppressed  the  name  of  his  former  chief ;  but  a  school- 
boy far  less  intelligent  than  Macaulay's  would  find  no 
difficulty  in  filling  the  blank. 

Mr.  Arnold's  first  incursion  into  practical  politics 
was  not  a  fortunate  one.  He  was  a  strong,  almost  a 
fanatical,  opponent  of  the  Burials  Bill.  He  did  not 
take  the  line,  logically  unassailable,  that  an  Established 
Church  comprises  the  whole  nation,  that  all  its  rites, 
including  the  Burial  Service,  are   national,  and  that 


III.]  MR.   ARNOLD'S  POLITICS  147 

as  Dissenters  -were  entitled  to  burial  in  national 
cemeteries  with  national  rites,  they  had  no  grievance. 
If  he  had  been  a  true  Erastian,  that  is  what  he  would 
have  said.  But  he  chose  to  argue  that  the  permission 
of  other  services  would  produce  scandal,  would  be,  as 
he  repeated  about  fifty  times,  like  the  substitution 
for  a  reading  from  Milton  of  a  reading  from  Eliza 
Cook.  The  twenty-three  years  that  have  elapsed  since 
the  Burials  Bill  received  the  Royal  assent  have  com- 
pletely falsified  this  gloomy  prediction.  No  statute 
has  worked  more  smoothly.  Even  the  foolish  clergy- 
men who  discovered  to  their  delight  that  it  did  not  com- 
pel them  to  let  the  bell  be  tolled  for  a  schismatic  have 
long  since  ceased  to  excite  any  interest.  That  the  Act 
is  inconsistent  with  the  principle  of  an  Established 
Church  seems  to  nie  clear.  But  the  people  of  England, 
though  just,  are  not  logical,  and  the  removal  of  this 
grievance,  which  was  really  i)art  of  a  much  larger  one, 
made  the  larger  one  more  difficult  to  redress.  Like 
many  freethinkers,  'Mr.  Arnold  had  a  horror  of  dis- 
establishment. He  was  opposed  to  it  even  in  Ireland, 
where  the  nature  of  things  might  be  said  to  demand 
it.  The  last  fifteen  years  have  vindicated  his  belief 
that  in  England  public  opinion  was  against  it,  and 
that  the  political  power  of  Xouconformity  was  on  the 
decline. 

Mr.  .Vrnold's  volume  of  Mixed  Essays  —  an  unhajipy 
title,  suggesting  biscuits  —  contains  two  or  three  which 
may  be  classed  as  political,  and  which  are  therefore 
fit  to  be  treated  here.  "  Equality "  is  an  elaborate 
argument,  which  never  took  any  hold  upon  the 
Ejiglish  people,  against  frecdtmi  of  beciuest.  Mr. 
AriKjld  had  the  support  of   Mill,  but  ho  had  not  the 


148  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

support  of  the  public.  He  saw  clearly  enough  that 
the  Real  Estates  Intestacy  Bill^  with  which  Liberals 
used  to  play,  would  have  had  no  practical  result,  for  a 
man  who  wanted  to  defeat  it  had  only  to  make  a  will. 
There  is  much  to  be  said  for  his  case.  The  earth,  as 
Turgot  put  it,  belongs  to  the  living,  and  not  to  the 
dead.  It  is  no  infringement  of  human  liberty  to 
prevent  a  man  from  fettering  those  who  come  after 
him.  But  this  is  a  subject  on  which  the  most  eloquent 
and  the  most  profound  philosophers  would  contend  in 
vain  with  the  customs  and  instincts  of  the  English 
people.  They  did  not  mind  Lord  Cairns's  Settled  Land 
Act,  which  enables  the  owner  of  a  life  interest  in  land 
to  sell  it  if  he  invests  the  money  for  the  benefit  of  the 
reversioner.  They  would  perhaps  tolerate  the  complete 
abolition  of  all  limited  ownership  in  land.  But  of  the 
compulsory  division  of  property  after  death,  which  pre- 
vails on  the  Continent,  they  will  not  hear.  Mr.  Arnold 
tells  an  amusing  story  of  an  American  who  was  asked 
what  could  be  done  in  the  United  States,  with  its  freedom 
of  bequest,  if  a  great  landed  estate  were  strictly  entailed. 
The  American  replied,  with  more  humour  than  candour, 
that  the  will  could  be  set  aside  on  the  ground  of 
insanity.  Such  is  the  difference  of  sentiment  between 
the  old  country  and  the  new.  In  this  case  Mr.  Arnold 
rode  his  hobby  too  hard.  The  feudal  origin  of  our 
land  laws  is  indisputable,  and  their  practical  incon- 
veniences are  numerous.  Yet  it  is  not  freedom  of 
bequest,  it  is  influences  far  more  subtle  and  profound, 
which  have  "the  natural  and  necessary  effect  under 
present  circumstances  of  materialising  our  upper 
class,  vulgarising  our  middle  class,  and  brutalising 
our  lower  class."    But,  indeed,  vulgarity  is  confined 


XII.]  MR.  ARNOLD'S  POLITICS  149 

to  no  class.     It  is,  and  always  must  be,  a  property  of 
the  individual. 

'•  I  do  not,"  ^Ir.  Arnold  wrote  {^fixed  Esscvjs,  2iid  Ed. 
p.  108),  '•  I  do  not  profess  to  be  a  politician,  but  simply 
one  of  a  disinterested  class  of  observers,  who,  with  no 
organised  and  embodied  set  of  supporters  to  please,  set 
themselves  to  observe  honestly  and  to  report  faithfully 
thestate  and  prospectsof  our  civilisation."  Thispassage, 
which  fairly  and  modestly  describes  himself,  is  taken 
from  his  admirable  essay  on  "  Irish  Catholicism  and 
British  Liberalism,''  in  which  Mr.  Bright  entirely  con- 
curred. Unlike  freedom  of  bequest,  this  subject  is  full 
of  vivid  interest  and  high  import  at  the  present  time. 
An  Irish  Catholic  University,  for  which  Mr.  Arnold 
pleads,  is  the  subject  of  the  best  and  most  thoughtful 
speeches  !Mr.  Balfour  has  ever  delivered.  It  is  a  point 
upon  which  he  and  'My.  ^Morley  quite  agree.  A  Royal 
Commission  was  appointed  to  consider  it  last  year,  and 
though  no  Government  will  take  it  up,  it  has  enlisted 
the  sympathies  of  eminent  men  on  both  sides  of 
politics.  The  question  is  beset  with  difficulties,  and 
cannot  be  settled  offhand  by  any  formula.  One  of 
these  difficulties  is  how  a  Catholic  University  should 
be  defined.  For  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  is  a  Catholic 
University  in  the  sense  that  it  admits  Catholics,  if  only 
they  would  go  there.  And  for  a  Catholic  University 
endowed  with  public  money  but  inaccessible  to  Pro- 
testants nobody  asks.  :Mr.  Arnold  answers  the  ques- 
tion in  a  sentence.  "  I  call  Strasburg  a  Protestant 
and  Bonn  a  Catholic  University  in  tliis  sense:  that 
religion  and  the  matters  mixed  up  with  religion  are 
taught  in  the  one  by  Protestants  and  in  the  otlier  by 
Catholics."      In  this  essay  Mr.  Arnold   intimates  his 


150  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

opinion  that  "  the  prevailing  form  for  the  Christianity 
of  the  future  will  be  the  form  of  Catholicism ;  but  a 
Catholicism  purged,  opening  itself  to  the  light  and 
air,  having  the  consciousness  of  its  own  poetry,  freed 
from  its  sacerdotal  despotism,  and  freed  from  its 
psuedo-scientific  apparatus  of  superannuated  dogma." 
It  hardly  seems  probable.  But  the  curtains  of  the  fu- 
ture hang.  The  Professors  in  Mr.  Arnold's  University 
would  be  "nominated  and  removed  not  by  the  bishops, 
but  by  a  responsible  minister  of  State  acting  for  the 
Irish  nation  itself."  A  minister  of  what  State?  This 
simple  question,  which  Mr.  Arnold  does  not  answer, 
raises  the  whole  issue  of  Home  Eule.  Mr.  Arnold  was 
very  anxious  that  a  religious  census  should  be  taken 
in  England,  as  it  is  in  Ireland.  In  Ireland  everybody 
is  either  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant,  and  nobody 
attempts  to  conceal  which  he  is,  bad  as  his  Protestant- 
ism or  his  Catholicism  may  be.  In  England  such  a 
census  would  be  fallacious,  because  persons  holding 
Matthew  Arnold's  religious  opinions  would  describe 
themselves  on  the  census-paper  as  Churchmen. 

In  three  essays,  besides  his  official  Keports,  Mr. 
Arnold  pleaded  earnestly  for  the  establishinent  in  the 
United  Kingdom  of  secondary  or  intermediate  schools. 
One  of  them  is  in  Mixed  Essays,  the  other  is  in  Irish 
Essays,  of  which  I  shall  have  more  to  say  in  connection 
with  Ireland.  One  of  them  is  called  "  An  Unregarded 
Irish  Grievance."  The  other  two  have  the  quaint 
titles  taken  from  the  Vulgate,  of  which  Matthew 
Arnold  was  almost  as  fond  as  Bacon,  "  Porro  unum  est 
necessarium,"  —  "  But  one  Thing  is  Needful "  ;  and 
"  Ecce  Convertimur  ad  Gentes,"  —  "  Lo,  we  turn  to  the 
Gentiles."     This  last  was  a  lecture  delivered  to  the 


XII.]  MK.    ARNOLD'S  POLITICS  161 

Working  Men's  College  at  Ipswich,  and  the  Gentiles 
were  the  working  classes,  whose  interest  in  tlie  subject 
Mr.  Arnold  wished  to  arouse.  All  these  essays  deserve 
the  most  careful  study.  They  were  written  by  a 
master  of  his  subject,  they  are  as  full  of  knowledge  as 
of  zeal,  they  are  eminently  practical,  and  they  have 
the  most  direct  bearing  u})on  the  politics  of  the  day. 
The  course  of  events  has  in  this  matter  fully  justified 
Mr.  Arnold,  who  was  wiser  than  the  statesmen,  and 
ahead  of  his  time.  In  his  address  at  Ipswich  he  took 
another  dip  into  the  future  which  also  showed  his  pre- 
science. ''No  one  in  England,"  he  said,  "seems  to 
imagine  that  municipal  government  is  applicable 
except  in  towns."  And  he  went  on  to  suggest  the 
policy,  since  carried  out  by  both  political  parties,  in 
the  form  of  County  and  District  and  Parish  Councils. 

In  the  preface  to  Irish  Essays,  dated  1882,  Mr. 
Arnold  says  that  ''  practical  politicians  and  men  of  the 
world  are  apt  rather  to  resent  the  incursion  of  a  man 
of  letters  into  the  field  of  politics."  They  only  resent 
it  when  he  does  not  take  their  side.  Both  Unionists 
and  Home  Eulers  were  always  boasting  of  their 
literary  supporters  in  the  great  controversy  of  1886. 
But  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  wise  men  of  the 
study  do  not  always  see  further  ahead  than  the  mere 
politicians  of  the  market-place.  Writing,  in  French, 
to  M.  Fontanes  on  the  22nd  of  September  1882,  Mr. 
Arnold  says,  "  The  English  army  will  leave  Egypt." 
The  process  of  departure  has  been  slow. 

Whatever  Mr.  Arnold  ^vrote  about  Ireland  is  worth 
serious  attention.  lie  took  for  his  master  Burke, 
perhaps  the  greatest  intellect  of  the  eigliteenth  cen- 
tury, certainly  the  greatest  intellect  concerned  with 


152  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

Irish  affairs.  For  Burke,  though  an  expatriated  Irish- 
man, never  lost  his  love  of  Ireland,  and  understood 
her  thoroughly.  Himself  a  Protestant,  his  wife  was  a 
Catholic,  as  his  mother  had  been,  and  though  he  had 
plenty  of  bigotry  in  politics,  from  religious  bigotry  he 
was  free.  The  great  change  produced  upon  him  by 
events  in  France  did  not  affect  his  Irish  policy,  and  to 
the  day  of  his  death  he  supported  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion. Whether,  if  he  had  lived  three  years  longer,  he 
would  have  been  in  favour  of  a  Union,  we  cannot  cer- 
tainly tell.  That  he  would  not  have  voted  for  it  with- 
out emancipation  we  may  be  sure.  Mr.  Arnold,  I 
think,  failed  to  appreciate  the  greatness  of  the  reform 
effected  by  the  Land  Act  of  1881.  But  his  acute 
analysis  of  its  influence  upon  Irish  opinion  is  quite  in 
Burke's  manner.  Ministers,  he  says,  declared  their 
belief  that  there  were  very  few  extortionate  landlords 
in  Ireland.  But  the  Act  has  led  to  a  general  reduc- 
tion of  rents.  Therefore  the  Irish  people  will  say, 
"We  owe  you  no  thanks;  you  have  done  us  justice 
without  meaning  it.  You  could  not  help  it,  our  case 
was  so  strong."  "  Burke,"  says  Mr.  Arnold,  truly  and 
finely,  ''Burke  is,  it  seems  to  me,  the  greatest  of 
English  statesmen  in  this  sense  at  any  rate :  that  he  is 
the  only  one  who  traces  the  reason  of  things  in  politics, 
and  enables  us  to  trace  it  too."  Mr.  Arnold  aimed  at 
following  that  good  example,  and  when  he  failed,  it 
was  because  he  had  not,  like  Burke,  the  political 
training  which  no  amount  of  cleverness  can  altogether 
supply.  In  one  of  the  two  essays  on  "  The  Inconi- 
patibles  "  he  says,  acutely  enough,  "  Our  aristocratic 
class  does  not  firmly  protest  against  the  unfair  treat- 
ment of  Irish  Catholicism,  because  it  is  nervous  about 


XII.]  MR.    ARNOLD'S   POLITICS  153 

the  land.  Our  middle  class  does  not  firmly  insist 
on  breaking  with  the  old  evil  system  of  Irish  land- 
lordism, because  it  is  nervous  about  Popery."  In  the 
other  he  says  that  the  English  are  "just,  but  not 
amiable,"  which,  if  not  strictly  and  literally  true,  is  at 
least  worth  thinking  about.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  was  not  practical  politics,  nor  yet  common  sense,  to 
suggest  that  instead  of  giving  Irish  tenants  fair  rent, 
free  sale,  and  fixity  of  tenure,  Irish  landlords  should 
be  bought  out  if,  in  the  opinions  of  Lord  Coleridge 
and  Mr.  Samuel  Morley,  they  deserved  to  be.  Mv. 
Arnold's  essay  on  Copyright  is  chiefly  remarkable  for 
its  advocacy  of  international  copyriglit  with  the  United 
States  on  terms  since  obtained,  and  its  repudiation  of 
Lord  Farrer's  theory,  supported  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  that 
authors  could  rely  upon  royalties.  But  "  The  Future 
of  Liberalism  "  contains  what  seems  to  me  a  funda- 
mental misconception  on  Mi\  Arnold's  part,  and  a 
fruitful  parent  of  error.  "In  general,"  he  says,  "the 
mind  of  the  country  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  pro- 
foundly Liberal."  Mr.  Arnold  was  apt  to  tlunk,  with 
the  bellman  in  the  Ilnntinfj  of  the  Snarlc,  that  what  he 
told  you  three  times  was  true.  England  is  not  pro- 
foundly Lil)eral,  and  never  was.  Slie  is  profoundly 
Conservative,  and  always  has  been.  There  was  an  out- 
burst of  Liberalism  in  the  early  Tliirties,  caused  partly 
by  the  Revolution  of  1830  in  Frajice,  and  partly  by 
the  intolerable  absurdities  of  our  representative  sys- 
tem. Mr.  Gladstone  had  the  power  of  rousing  extraor- 
dinary enthusiasm  on  behalf  of  particular  policies 
at  particular  times.  But  these  are  the  exceptions  to 
the  rule,  which  is  patient  acquiescence  in  things  as 
they  are.     That  is  why  most  of  the  wisest  English- 


154  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

men  have  been  Liberals.    There  is  no  risk  of  too  rapid 
progress  in  England.     The  danger  is  the  other  way. 

It  mnst,  I  think,  be  reckoned  one  of  the  few  mis- 
fortunes in  a  most  happy  life  that  Matthew  Arnold 
should  have  been  tempted  to  visit  America  as  a  public 
lecturer.  No  doubt  the  temptation  was  great.  Mr. 
Arnold's  means  were  moderate,  and  he  had  to  provide 
for  his  family  as  well  as  for  himself.  His  own  tastes 
were  of  the  simplest,  and  he  was  the  most  contented 
of  men.  But  a  large  sum  of  money  was  a  consideration 
to  him,  while  both  he  and  his  wife  had  always  been 
fond  of  travelling.  So  in  the  aiitumn  of  1883  they 
went.  Of  course  they  were  most  warmly  greeted,  and 
most  hospitably  entertained.  But  the  lecturing  was 
not  a  success.  Major  Pond,  in  his  Eccentricities  of 
Genius,  says,  "  Matthew  Arnold  came  to  this  country 
and  gave  one  hundred  lectures.  Nobody  ever  heard 
any  of  them,  not  even  those  sitting  in  the  front  row." 
He  adds  that  General  Grant,  who  attended  the  first 
lecture  in  Chickering  Hall,  New  York,  was  overheard 
to  say  after  a  few  minutes,  "  Well,  wife,  we  have  paid 
to  see  the  British  lion ;  we  cannot  hear  him  roar,  so  we 
had  better  go  home."  This  explains  a  passage  in  Mr. 
Arnold's  letter  to  his  sister  Fanny,  dated  the  8th 
of  November  1883,  in  which  the  General  is  repre- 
sented as  calling  at  the  office  of  the  Tribune  "  to  thank 
them  for  their  good  report  of  the  main  points  of  my 
lecture,  as  he  had  thought  the  line  taken  so  very 
important,  but  had  heard  imperfectly."  Although  he 
had  been  a  Professor  at  Oxford,  Mr.  Arnold  was  not 
accustomed  to  address  crowded  audiences  in  large 
halls,  and  he  did  not  understand  the  management  of 
his  voice.      He  took   lessons  in  elocution  at  Boston, 


III.]  MR.   AKNOLD'S  POLITICS  165 

but  at  the  age  of  sixty  it  was  late  to  learn,  and  the 
thing  was  not  in  his  line.  He  took  it,  as  he  took 
everything,  with  invincible  cheerfulness  and  good- 
humour.  But  it  has  a  rather  grotesque  effect  to  read 
in  a  letter  to  his  younger  daughter,  written  from  the 
Union  Club,  Chicago,  on  the  21st  of  January  1884, 
"  We  have  had  a  week  of  good  houses  (I  consider  my- 
self now  as  an  actor,  for  my  managers  take  me  about 
with  theatrical  tickets,  at  reduced  rates,  over  the  rail- 
ways, and  the  tickets  have  Matthew  Arnold  troupe 
printed  on  them)."  Lord  Coleridge  and  Sir  Henry 
Irving,  who  were  both  there  at  the  same  time  with 
him,  were  both  in  their  respective  places,  but  one  feels 
that  ^Matthew  Arnold  was  out  of  place.  He  enjoyed 
himself  of  course,  —  he  always  did.  I  remember  the 
delight  with  which  he  told  me  of  his  invitation  from 
Mr.  Phineas  Barnum,  "  the  greatest  showman  on 
earth."  "You,  Mr.  Arnold,"  wrote  the  great  man, 
"are  a  celebrity,  I  am  a  notoriety;  we  ought  to  be 
acquainted."  "  I  couldn't  go,"  remarked  Mr.  Arnold, 
"  but  it  was  very  nice  of  him."  Matthew  Arnold  told 
^Ir.  George  Russell  that  Discoumes  in  America,  pub- 
lished by  ^lacmillan  in  1885,  was  the  book  of  all  others 
by  which  he  should  most  wish  to  be  remembered.  It 
consists  of  three  lectures,  but  the  only  one  which 
can  be  called  political  is  the  first,  on  "  Numbers,  or 
the  Majority  and  the  Remnant."  The  argument  of  this 
essay  is  as  follows.  The  majority  are  always  wrong  ; 
the  remnant  are  always  right.  Isaiah  represented  the 
remnant  of  Israel ;  Plato  represented  the  remnant  of 
Athens.  In  both  cases  tin?  State  was  so  small  that 
the  remnant  were  not  numerous  enough  to  do  any 
good.     In  the  United  States  the  population  is  so  larg»i 


156  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

that  the  remnant  must  be  sufficient,  and  the  United 
States  are  therefore  safe.  I  cannot  suppose  that  this 
was  anything  but  elaborate  irony  on  Mr,  Arnold's 
part,  or  that  his  more  intelligent  hearers  were  un- 
conscious of  the  fact.  But  there  were  many  digres- 
sions. It  is  here  that  he  rebukes  his  old  friends  the 
French  for  their  worship  of  "  the  great  goddess  Lubric- 
ity," called  by  the  Greeks  Aselgeia,  and  describes 
Victor  Hugo  in  one  of  his  least  felicitous  phrases  as 
"  the  average  sensual  man  impassioned  and  grandilo- 
quent." The  greatest  of  French  dramatists  since 
Moliere  is  singularly  free  from  the  fault  which  Mr. 
Arnold  here  reprehends. 

This  was  not  Mr.  Arnold's  last  visit  to  the  United 
States,  where  his  elder  daughter  married  and  settled. 
He  went  there  again  in  1886,  and  arrived  at  the 
singular  conclusion  that  all  the  best  opinion  of 
America,  the  opinion  of  the  "  remnant,"  was  hostile 
to  the  Irish  policy  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  Truly  the 
eye  sees  what  it  brings  with  it  the  power  of  seeing. 
This  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  discuss  whether 
Home  Eule  for  Ireland  would  be  a  good  thing  or  a 
bad.  That  the  majority  of  intelligent  and  cultivated 
Americans  thought  it  in  1886,  as  they  think  it  now, 
to  be  a  good  thing,  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever. 
Although  he  had  American  friends,  whom  he  valued 
and  appreciated,  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  altogether  like 
America.  In  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  April  1888, 
the  year  and  month  of  his  death,  may  be  seen  his 
final  judgment  on  the  subject.  He  had  wi-itten  the 
year  before  for  his  nephew,  Mr.  Edward  Arnold, 
then  editor  of  Murray'' s  Magazine,  two  articles  on 
the  rather  dull  Memoirs  of  General  Grant,  whom,  in 


XII.]  MK.    ARNOLD'S  POLITICS  157 

one  of  his  freaks  of  waywardness,  he  prononnced 
superior  to  Lincoln.  Lincoln,  it  seems,  the  author 
of  the  speech  at  Gettysburg  and  the  Second  Inaugu- 
ral, had  no  ''  distinction."  Happy  the  nation  where 
such  classic  eloquence  is  not  distinguished.  Mv.  Ar- 
nold's last  word  on  American  life  is  the  word  ''  unin- 
teresting." "  The  mere  nomenclature  of  the  country 
acts  upon  a  cultivated  person  like  the  incessant 
pricking  of  pins."  The  "funny  man"  is  a  "national 
misfortune."  So  he  is  here.  And,  after  all,  ]\Lark 
Twain  is  better  than  Ally  Sloper.  ]\[r.  Arnold's 
criticism  of  what  was  unsound  in  American  insti- 
tutions and  manners  would  have  been  more  effective 
if  he  had  had,  like  ]\rr.  Bryce,  more  sympathy  with 
what  was  sound  in  them. 

Any  survey  of  ]\Latthew  Arnold's  politics  would 
be  incomplete  without  a  reference  to  his  opinions 
on  Home  Rule.  To  Mr.  Gladstone's  Home  Ride 
Bill  of  1886  he  was  decidedly  opposed.  Both  before 
and  after  the  General  Election  of  that  year  he 
wrote  to  the  Times  a  strong  protest  against  the 
policy  embodied  in  it.  These  letters,  except  for 
the  personal  animosity  to  ]\[r.  Gladstone  which  the 
second  displays,  are  wholly  admirable  in  tone  and 
temper.  In  them  Mr.  Arnold  admits  to  the  full 
the  grievances  of  Ireland  against  England,  and  calls 
for  their  redress.  Only  he  would  redress  them,  not 
by  a  "  separate  Parliament,"  but  by  a  "  rational  and 
equitable  system  of  government."  Lord  Salisbury's 
policy  of  coercion  suited  him  as  little  as  ^Mr.  (J lad- 
stone's  policy  of  repeal.  He  proposed  that  the  local 
government  of  Ireland  should  be  thoroughly  over- 
haulod  and   made  truly  popular,  even  before  such   a 


158  MATTHEW   AKNOLD  [chap.  xii. 

system  was  introduced  into  the  rest  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  These  letters  show  the  Whig  spirit  at 
its  best,  and  are  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Arnold.  He  followed  them  up  the  next  year  with 
three  articles  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  called  respec- 
tively "  The  Zenith  of  Conservatism,"  "  Up  to  Easter," 
and  "  From  Easter  to  August."  In  these,  while  giving 
a  general  support  to  the  Government  of  Lord  Salis- 
bury, he  showed  himself  to  be  a  very  bad  Unionist 
from  the  strictly  orthodox  point  of  view ;  for  he  pro- 
posed that  there  should  be  not  a  single  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, but  two  Irish  Parliaments,  of  which  one  should 
legislate  for  the  North  and  the  other  for  the  South. 
The  fact  is,  it  was  not  Home  Rule,  but  Gladstone's 
Home  Rule,  that  Matthew  Arnold  disliked.  Indeed, 
one  might  almost  say  that  it  was  not  Home  Rule,  but 
Gladstone. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  AFTERMATH 

Dl'Rikg  the  last  twenty  years  of  liis  life  ^Matthew 
Aruold  wrote  very  little  poetry;  but  the  little  he  did 
write  was  very  good.  There  are  lines  in  "  Westminster 
Abbey  "  which  he  never  surpassed,  and  a  few  which, 
in  my  opinion,  he  never  equalled.  This  beautiful 
poem  was  composed  in  memory  of  Dean  Stanley,  and 
it  could  have  had  no  worthier  subject.  For  Stanley, 
Mr.  Arnold's  lifelong  friend,  was  not  merely  the 
courtly  ecclesiastic,  the  scholarly  divine;  he  was  the 
chivalrous  defender  of  all  causes  and  of  all  persons, 
however  unpopular  for  the  moment,  that  stood  for 
freedom,  charity,  and  truth.  If  the  spirit  of  Dean 
Stanley  had  always  dominated  the  Establishment,  the 
Liberation  Society  would  never  have  been  formed. 
The  chapter  in  jNIrs.  Besant's  Aiitobiorjraphy  describing 
Dr.  Stanley  is  a  noble  picture  of  what  a  Christian 
minister  should  be.  He  delighted  in  all  the  traditions 
of  his  Abbey,  and  Mr.  Arnold  happily  chose  to  connect 
vnth.  him  the  beautiful  legend  which  tells  of  its  mystic 
consecration  by  St.  Peter  himself.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  these  sonorous  stanzas  recall  Milton's  great 
Ode  on  the  Nativity,  tliey  are  not  disappointing ;  they 
have  the  note  of  the  grand  style  — 

"  RoukH  was  the  winter  eve  ; 
Their  craft  tin-  fisliers  leave, 


160  MATTHEW  AENOLD  [chap. 

And  down  over  the  Thames  the  darkness  drew. 
One  still  lags  last,  and  turns,  and  eyes  the  Pile 
Huge  in  the  gloom,  across  in  Thorney  Isle, 

King  Sebert's  work,  the  wondrous  Minster  new. 
—  'Tis  Lambeth  now,  where  then 

They  moor'd  their  boats  among  the  bulrush  stems ; 
And  that  new  Minster  in  the  matted  fen 

The  world-famed  Abbey  by  the  westering  Thames." 

These  verses  deserve  to  be  called  Miltonic,  even  if 
they  have  not  the  inimitable  touch  of  the  master. 

But  it  is  the  later  lines  about  Demophoon,  "the 
charm'd  babe  of  the  Eleusinian  king,"  which  I  should 
be  disposed  to  select  as  the  high-water  mark  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  poetry.  They  haunt  the  memory 
with  that  ineffaceable  charm  which  belongs  only  to  the 
highest  order  of  poetical  expression  — 

"  The  Boy  his  nurse  forgot, 
And  bore  a  mortal  lot. 
Long  since,  his  name  is  heard  on  earth  no  more. 
In  some  chance  battle  on  Cithaeron's  side 
The  nursling  of  the  Mighty  Mother  died, 
And  went  where  all  his  fathers  went  before." 

Here  one  might  well  take  leave  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
poems,  and  pass  to  those  literary  essays  which  he 
wrote  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  knowledge  and  his 
power.  For,  happy  in  so  many  things,  he  was  happiest 
of  all  in  this,  that  no  bodily  sense,  and  no  mental 
faculty,  ever  suffered  in  him  the  smallest  abatement. 
But  I  cannot  omit  all  mention  of  the  pretty,  facile 
lyrics  in  which  he  paid  tribute  to  his  beloved  dogs  and 
birds.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  ''  Geist's  Grave,"  to  "  Poor 
Matthias,"  and  to  "  Kaiser  Dead."  Geist  was  a  Dachs- 
hund,  Kaiser  a  mixture  of  Dachshund  and  collie. 


.Tin.]  THE   AFTERMATH  IGl 

]\ratthias  was  a  canary.  "  Geist's  Grave,"  is  by  far  the 
best  of  the  three,  and  contains  at  least  two  excellent 
stanzas  — 

"That  loving  heart,  that  patient  soul, 
Had  they  indeed  no  longer  span, 
To  run  their  course,  and  reach  their  goal, 
And  read  their  homily  to  man  ? 

"That  liquid,  melancholy  eye, 
From  whose  pathetic,  soul-fed  springs 
Seem'd  surging  the  Virgilian  cry. 
The  sense  of  tears  in  mortal  things." 

The  literary  criticism  produced  by  Mr.  Arnold  in 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  possesses  the  highest 
interest  and  value.  It  ranges  over  a  great  variety  of 
topics,  it  represents  the  writer's  profoundest  mind,  it 
comes  next  after  his  poetry  in  a  comparative  estimate 
of  what  he  left  to  the  world.  In  dealing  with  politics, 
or  with  theology,  Mr.  Arnold  never  moved  with  the 
same  ease  as  in  the  realm  of  pure  literature,  which 
was  his  o^\^l.  He  loved  to  take  a  book,  like  Mr.  Stop- 
ford  Brooke's  excellent  Primer  of  English  Literature, 
and  in  criticising  it  to  express  his  own  opinions.  He 
protested,  quite  justly,  and  by  no  means  unnecessarily, 
again.st  the  foolish  idolatry  which  admires  without 
discrimination  everything  in  a  volume  labelled 
"  Shakespeare."  For  it  is  certain  that  if  Shakespeare 
wrote  all  the  plays  and  all  the  scenes  attributed  to 
liiiii,  lie  wrote  some  very  poor  stuff.  lUit  when  Mr. 
Arnold  says  of  him,  not  in  substance  for  the  first  or 
last  time,  "  He  is  the  ricliest,  the  most  wonderful,  the 
most  powerful,  the  most  delightful  of  poets;  he  is  not 
altogetlier,  nor  even  eminently,  an  artist"  (Mixed 
Esscujs,   2nd   Ed.    p.    191),   he  provokes  antagonism. 

M 


162  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

There  is  more  in  the  sonnets  than  art  could  have  put 
there.  But  poems  more  consummately  artistic  never 
came  from  a  human  brain  and  heart.  It  is,  however, 
a  fascinating  essay,  this  on  Mr.  Brooke's  Primer,  and 
so  is  another  in  the  same  volume  on  Falkland,  the 
famous  Lord  Falkland  immortalised  by  Clarendon, 
Yet  Falkland  is  perhaps  not  most  judiciously  praised 
(and  highly  does  Mr.  Arnold  praise  him)  by  comparing 
him  with  Bolingbroke,  whose  levity  and  insincerity 
are  not  redeemed  by  the  false  glitter  of  his  mere- 
tricious style.  Mr.  Arnold  is  severe  on  Burke  for 
asking  "  Who  now  reads  Bolingbroke  ?  "  But  on  this 
point  the  popular  verdict  is  with  Burke,  and  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say  that  it  is  wrong.  Mr.  Disraeli 
did  his  best  for  Bolingbroke's  public  character,  and 
for  the  principles  of  "The  Patriot  King."  But,  as 
Dr.  Pusey  said  of  Lord  Westbury  and  eternal  punish- 
ment, he  had  a  personal  interest  in  the  question. 
In  "A  French  Critic  on  Milton"  and  "A  French 
Critic  on  Goethe,"  Mr.  Arnold  took  up  the  cudgels 
for  the  highly  intelligent  and  respectable  M.  Scherer, 
M.  Scherer,  however,  was  dull,  he  was  prosy,  and 
even  Matthew  Arnold  could  not  make  him  anything 
else.  When  this  senator  of  France,  and  director 
of  the  Temps  newspaper,  tells  us  that  Paradise 
Lost  is  "a  false  poem,  a  grotesque  poem,  a  tire- 
some poem,"  we  can  only  smile  compassionately,  and 
wonder  what  resemblance  to  Sainte-Beuve  Mr.  Arnold 
could  find  in  M.  Scherer.  M.  Scherer  certainly  seems 
to  have  misled  Mr.  Arnold  on  one  point  of  some  im- 
portance connected  with  Goethe.  Goethe  did  indeed 
tell  an  Italian  that  "  he  thought  the  Inferno  abomina- 
ble, the  Purgatorio   dubious,   and  the  Paj'adiso  tire- 


xui.]  THE   AFTEKilATH  103 

some."  But  that  was  not  Goethe's  serious  opinion. 
lie  made  the  reniark  as  the  surest  Avay  to  get  rid  of 
an  intolerable  bore.  Sk  me  servavit  ApoUo.  Even 
Dante  need  not  object  to  fultilling  the  same  functions 
as  the  god  of  light.  How  thoroughly  ]\ratthew  Arnold 
himself  appreciated  Goethe,  how  much  he  learned  from 
him,  we  all  know.  His  final  judgment  {Mixed  Essays, 
2nd  Ed.  p.  311)  is  contained  in  two  short  sentences. 
"  It  is  by  no  means  as  the  greatest  of  poets  that  he 
deserves  the  pride  and  praise  of  his  German  country- 
men. It  is  as  the  clearest,  the  largest,  the  most 
helpful  thinker  of  modern  times."  No  essay  in  this 
voluuie  is  more  charming  than  the  memorial  tribute 
to  George  Sand.  George  Sand  is,  I  believe,  out  of 
fashion  in  France.  She  is  certainly  not  half  so  much 
read  in  England  as  she  was  twenty  years  ago.  So  far 
as  her  best  and  simplest  books  are  concerned,  this  is 
a  great  loss.  For,  as  Mr.  Arnold  so  happily  quotes 
from  her,  she  gives  better  than  almost  any  one  else 
"/e  sentiment  de  la  vie  ideale,  qui  n^est  autre  que  la  vie 
normale  telle  que  nous  sommes  appeUs  A  la  connaitre" 
—  '•  the  sentiment  of  the  ideal  life,  which  is  none 
other  than  the  normal  life  as  we  are  destined  to  know 
it."  George  Sand  never  brought  the  ideal  down  to  the 
level  of  the  real. 

Oddly  bound  up  with  IrisJi  Essays  are  a  lecture 
to  Eton  boys  on  the  value  of  the  classics,  and  an 
ingenious  disquisition  on  the  French  Play  in  London. 
At  Eton,  where  Mr.  Arnold  believed,  or  pretended  to 
believe,  that  a  scientific  training  was  the  vogue,  he 
tracked  Greek  life  through  many  of  its  phases  by 
mfans  of  the  words  ivrpdwcXo^  and  cvrpmreXLa,  to  which 
perhaps  the  nearest  English  equivalents  are  "  versatile" 


164  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

and  "  versatility."  How  evTpdTreXo<;,  a  handy  man,  came 
to  mean  (SwfxoXoxo?,  a  lick-spittle,  is  a  long  story,  and 
it  is  curious  that,  as  Mr.  Arnold  points  out,  Pindar,  in 
whose  Odes  it  first  occurs,  uses  it  in  a  bad  sense,  like 
St.  Paul,  who  applies  it  to  the  jesting  which  is  not 
convenient.  In  Plato,  however,  it  sometimes  has  an 
unfavourable  meaning  too,  and  this  Mr.  Arnold  omits 
to  observe.  But  the  value  of  his  lecture  lies  in  its 
fruitful  and  suggestive  comparison  of  Greek  life  with 
English.  No  man  knew  the  classics  better  than 
Mr.  Arnold.  No  man  made  a  better  use  of  his  know- 
ledge. The  essay  on  the  French  Play  is  interesting  in 
many  ways,  not  least  for  the  personal  reminiscence 
with  which  he  introduces  the  subject.  "  I  remember," 
he  says,  "  how  in  my  youth,  after  a  first  sight  of  the 
divine  Rachel  at  the  Edinburgh  Theatre  in  the  part  of 
Hermione,  I  followed  her  to  Paris,  and  for  two  months 
never  missed  one  of  her  representations  "  (Irish  Essays, 
Pop.  Ed.  p.  151).  Of  course  after  that  Mr.  Arnold 
could  not  be  expected  to  go  into  raptures  over 
Mademoiselle  Sarah  Bernhardt,  and  he  does  not. 
"  Something  is  wanting,  or,  at  least,  not  present  in 
sufficient  force.  ...  It  was  here  that  Rachel  was  so 
great ;  she  began,  one  says  to  oneself  as  one  recalls  her 
image  and  dwells  upon  it,  —  she  began  almost  where 
Mademoiselle  Sarah  Bernhardt  ends"  (page  153). 
But  Mr.  Arnold  never  saw  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  Hamlet. 
Again  in  this  essay  Mr.  Arnold  attacks  A^ictor  Hugo, 
and  attacks  him  where,  if  he  sins,  he  sins  in  excellent 
company.  "  M.  Victor  Hugo's  brilliant  gift  for  versifica- 
tion is  exercised  within  the  limits  of  a  form  inadequate 
for  true  tragic  poetry,  and  by  its  very  presence  excluding 
it "  (page  164).     That  is  very  dogmatic  criticism  indeed. 


XIII.]  THE   AFTERMATH  165 

Mr.  Arnold  disliked  the  French  Alexandrine,  even  as 
handled  by  such  a  master  as  Racine,  and  therefore 
he  pronounced  it  inadequate  for  true  tragedy.  He 
would  not  have  cared  much  for  a  criticism  of  Homer 
by  a  man  who  disliked  hexameters,  and  thought  them 
inadequate  for  epic  poetry.  At  page  166  he  makes 
the  acute  remark  that  "we  have  no  modern  drama, 
because  our  vast  society  is  not  at  present  homogeneous 
enough."  Nevertheless  he  pleads  for  a  national 
theatre.  We  shall  have  a  national  drama  first.  jNIr. 
Arnold  was  an  old  playgoer,  and  wrote  some  lively 
dramatic  notices  for  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  in  that 
name.  But  the  enormous  number  of  Englishmen  who 
do  not  care  for  the  play,  and  never  go  to  it,  would 
hardly  like  to  be  taxed  for  theatrical  purposes. 

The  second  series  of  Essays  in  Criti'a's7n  appeared 
after  Mr.  Arnold's  death,  with  a  Prefatory  Note  by 
Lord  Coleridge.  But  they  were  collected  by  himself, 
and  are  what  he  deliberately  judged  to  be  worthy  of 
republication.  They  are  nine  in  number,  but  the  last 
three  do  not,  I  think,  add  much  to  the  value  of  the 
collection.  The  first  six,  on  the  other  hand,  are  equal, 
if  not  superior,  to  any  other  critical  work  of  Mr. 
Arnold's.  "The  Study  of  Poetry,"  with  which  the 
volume  opens,  was  originally  written  for  ^Nfr.  Humphry 
Ward's  Selections  from  the  English  Poets,  it  contains 
]Mr.  Arnold's  final  and  deliberate  judgment  upon  the 
true  nature  of  poetry.  After  quoting  Aristotle's  "pro- 
found ol)servation  "  that  poetry  is  both  a  more  philo- 
sophical thing,  and  a  more  serious  thing,  than  history, 
he  says  (page  121)  that  "the  substance  and  matter  of 
the  best  poetry  acquire  their  special  character  from 
possessing,  in  an  eminent  degree,  truth  and  serious- 


166  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

ness."  But  "  the  superior  character  of  truth  and 
seriousness,  in  the  matter  and  substance  of  the  best 
poetry,  is  inseparable  from  the  superiority  of  diction 
and  movement  marking  its  style  and  manner."  Little 
can  be  added  to  this,  and  certainly  nothing  can  be 
subtracted  from  it.  Next  to  it,  the  most  interesting 
part  of  the  essay  is  the  free  and  candid  estimate  of 
Burns.  This  is  the  more  welcome  because,  while  he 
was  writing  the  paper,  in  jSTovember  1880,  he  told  his 
sister  {Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  184)  that  Burns  was  "  a  beast 
with  splendid  gleams."  What  would  Mr.  Arnold  have 
thought  of  the  Philistine  who  described  Catullus  as  a 
beast  with  splendid  gleams  ?  And  yet  Catullus,  who 
was  far  grosser  than  Burns,  is  the  poet  whom,  as  the 
late  Professor  Sellar  showed.  Burns  most  resembles. 
In  his  beautiful  address  on  Milton,  delivered  at  St. 
Margaret's  Church,  Westminster,  a  few  weeks  before 
his  death,  Mr.  Arnold  said,  with  truth,  force,  and 
insight  (page  66),  "  In  our  race  are  thousands  of 
readers,  presently  there  will  be  millions,  who  know 
not  a  word  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  will  never  learn 
those  languages.  If  this  host  of  readers  are  ever  to 
gain  any  sense  of  the  power  and  charm  of  the  great 
poets  of  antiquity,  their  way  to  gain  it  is  not  through 
translations  of  the  ancients,  but  through  the  original 
poetry  of  Milton,  who  has  the  like  power  and  charm, 
because  he  has  the  like  great  style."  Only  a  born  man 
of  letters  could  have  written  that.  But  when  Mr. 
Arnold  quotes  from  Gray's  friend,  Dr.  Warton,  the 
words,  "  He  never  spoke  out,"  and  says  that  ''  in  these 
four  words  is  contained  the  whole  history  of  Gray, 
both  as  a  man  and  as  a  poet,"  he  becomes  fantastic. 
What  Dr.  Warton  means,  is  that  Gray  was  not  com- 


XIII.]  TILE  AFTERMATH  107 

municative  about  the  state  of  his  own  health.  He 
was  a  copious  letter-writer,  and  his  letters  are  among 
the  best  in  the  language.  If  the  amount  of  his  poetry 
is  comparatively  small,  it  had  a  range  wide  enough 
to  include  the  "  Progress  of  Poesy,"  the  "  Elegy  in  a 
Country  Churcliyard,"  and  the  political  satires.  To 
Keats,  Mr.  Arnold  became  juster  as  he  grew  older, 
and  in  tliis  his  final  estimate  he  couples  him,  not  with 
Maui'ice  de  Guerin,  but  with  Shakespeare.  This 
reminds  one  of  Lord  Young's  comment  on  the  remark 
that  Barues,  the  Dorset  poet,  might  be  put  on  the 
same  shelf  with  Burns.  "  It  would  have  to  be  a  long 
shelf,"  said  the  witty  Judge.  But  it  is  true  that  "  no 
one  else  in  English  poetry,  save  Shakespeare,  has  in 
expression  quite  the  fascinating  felicity  of  Keats,  his 
perfection  of  loveliness ''  (page  119).  The  essay  on 
"Wordsworth  is  so  good,  that  to  praise  it  is  better  than 
to  criticise  it,  and  to  read  it  is  better  than  either.  But 
such  a  statement  as  that  "  the  Excursion  and  the 
Prelude,  his  poems  of  greatest  bulk,  are  by  no  meaus 
"Wordsworth's  best  work  "  (page  135)  requires  a  justi- 
fication which  ]Mr.  Arnold  does  not  give  it.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  in  any  of  AVordsworth's  shorter 
pieces  better  verses  than  the  lines  on  the  Simplon 
Pass,  or  the  passage  beginning  "  Fabric  it  seemed  of 
diamond  and  of  gold."  "While,  however,  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  ]\Ir.  Arnold  exaggerates  the  prosi- 
ness  of  "Wordsworth's  prosaic  passages,  and  dwells  too 
much  upon  that  familiar  theme,  he  more  than  com- 
pensates for  any  trifling  blemishes  by  such  a  noble 
sentence  as  this :  "  His  expression  may  often  be  called 
bald,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  poem  of  Jiesolution  and 
Independence ;  but  it  is  bald  as  the  bare  mountain  tops 


168  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

are  bald,  with  a  baldness  which  is  fall  of  grandeur." 
Mr.  Arnold  is  readier  to  do  Byron  justice  than  most 
Wordsworthians  are.  It  was  Tennyson  that  Words- 
worth prevented  him  from  appreciating,  not  Byron. 
Byron's  poetry  seems,  so  far  as  one  can  judge,  to  be 
out  of  date  now.  It  is  his  letters  rather  than  his 
poems  which  people  read.  But  his  "  sincerity  and 
strength,"  to  use  the  phrase  which  Mr.  Arnold  quotes 
from  INIr.  Swinburne,  must  always  be  acknowledged. 

The  remaining  essays  in  this  volume  deal  with 
Professor  Dowden's  Life  of  Shelley,  with  the  earlier 
writings  of  Count  Tolstoi,  and  with  the  Diary  ofAmiel. 
Mr.  Arnold  was  profoundly  disgusted  with  the  details 
of  Shelley's  private  life,  with  "  Godwin's  house  of 
sordid  horror,"  with  Byron's  "  brutal  selfishness,"  and 
so  on.  "  What  a  set !  what  a  world !  "  he  exclaims 
naturally  enough.  To  compare  them  with  the  Oriel 
Common  Room  shows  perhaps  a  lack  in  the  sense  of 
proportion.  They  are  more  like  the  strange  company 
who  accompanied  Candide  on  his  rambles.  But  after 
Professor  Dowden's  strange  apologetics,  Mr.  Arnold's 
rational  morals  and  inbred  sense  of  refinement  are 
salutary  and  refreshing.  To  say  of  Shelley  as  a  poet 
that  he  is  "  a  beautiful  and  ineffectual  angel,  beating 
in  the  void  his  luminous  wings  in  vain,"  is  impressive, 
and  I  suppose  it  means  something.  But  it  does  not 
account  for  the  "Skylark,"  or  "When  the  Lamp  is 
Shattered,"  or  the  mighty  "  Ode  to  the  West  Wind." 
Mr.  Arnold's  analysis  of  Anna  Karenina  is  appreciative 
enough,  and  he  would  have  thoroughly  enjoyed 
Resurrection  if  he  had  lived  to  read  it.  But  his 
recommendation  that  Count  Tolstoi  should  leave 
religion  and  stick  to  literature,  comes  strangely  from 


nil.]  THE  AFTEKMATU  169 

the  author  of  Literature  and  Dogma.  Xo  living  writer 
has  inculcated  the  teaching  of  Christ  with  more 
eloquence  than  Count  Tolstoi.  Of  Amiel,  it  is  no 
doubt  true  that  he  shines  more  in  literary  criticism 
than  in  mystic  speculation.  He  could  hardly  shine 
less.  But  what  had  Matthew  Arnold  to  do  with 
Amiel  ? 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CONCLUSION 

So  early  as  October  1882,  Mr.  Arnold,  in  an  amusing 
letter  to  Mr.  Morley,  spoke  of  resignation.  "I  an- 
nounced yesterday  at  the  office  my  intention  of  retir- 
ing at  Easter  or  Whitsuntide.  Gladstone  will  never 
promote  the  author  of  Literature  and  Dogma  if  he  can 
help  it,  and  meanwhile  my  life  is  drawing  to  an 
end,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  execute  the  Dance  of 
Death  in  an  elementary  school "  {Letters,  ii.  207).  He 
did  not,  however,  actually  resign  till  the  SOth  of 
April  1886,  when  he  had  been  an  Inspector  for  thirty- 
five  years.  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  promote  the  author 
of  Literature  and  Dogma.  But  he  offered  him  a  pen- 
sion of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  "  as  a  public 
recognition  of  service  to  the  poetry  and  literature  of 
England."  After  some  quite  unnecessary  hesitation, 
Mr.  Arnold  accepted  the  offer.  Eew  men,  to  say 
nothing  of  poetry  and  literature,  ever  served  the 
public  more  faithfully  for  a  remuneration  which  at 
no  time  equalled  the  salary''  of  a  police  magistrate 
or  a  County  Court  judge.  If  he  did  not  work  so  hard 
as  some  of  his  colleagues  at  the  routine  and  drudgery 
of  inspection,  his  reports  are  the  most  luminous,  the 
most  interesting,  and  the  most  suggestive  that  have 
ever  been  issued  from  the  Education  Department.  A 
collection  of  these  Eeports  from  1852  to  1882  was 

170 


cuAV.  XIV.]  CONCLUSION  171 

published  by  Messrs.  ^Slacmillau  in  1889,  with  an  in- 
troduction from  the  pen  of  the  late  Lord  Sandford,  so 
long  Secretary  to  the  Education  Office. 

In  the  autumn  of  1885,  ;Mr.  Arnold  was  sent  to 
inquire  into  the  working  of  elementary  education  in 
Germany,  France,  and  Switzerland.  He  was  especially 
directed  to  report  upon  the  payment  of  fees  by  the 
parent,  by  the  municipality,  and  by  the  State.  This 
Report  is  not  quite  so  good  a  piece  of  composition  as 
its  predecessors,  and  there  are  signs  that  it  was  written 
in  a  hurry.  His  own  recommendations  are  character- 
istic. He  thought  that  the  balance  of  argument  was 
against  free  education.  But  he  held  that  it  had  better 
be  given  because  the  want  of  it  put  a  powerful  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  agitator.  This  is  thoroughly  and 
essentially  ^Miig.  He  concluded  by  urging  once  more 
that  secondary  education  should  be  organised,  as  it 
seems  likely  at  last  to  be.  Free  education  was 
adopted  three  years  after  his  death. 

This  Report  was  Mr.  Arnold's  last  bit  of  official 
work.  After  his  resignation  he  used  his  freedom  to 
write  more  on  politics,  and  his  pen  was  never  idle. 
His  general  health  was  good,  though  he  had  been 
warned  of  hereditary  weakness  in  the  heart  Avhich 
made  any  sudden  or  violent  exertion  dangerous. 
While  at  Liverpool  with  his  wife  on  Sunday  the 
loth  of  April  1888,  he  ran  to  catch  a  tramcar,  and 
died  in  a  moment.  He  had  gone  to  meet  his  elder 
daughter  on  her  way  home  from  the  United  States, 
and  in  the  delighted  expectation  of  seeing  her  he 
passed  away.  Few  knew  anything  of  his  malady, 
and  no  one  looked  less  like  an  invalid.  He  was  sixty- 
five  at  the  time  of  his  death,  but  he  might  easily  have 


172  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

passed  for  a  much,  younger  man.  His  eye  was  not 
dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated.  Always  full  of 
gaiety  and  good-humour,  he  had  the  high  spirits  of  a 
boy,  and  the  serene  contentment  of  a  philosopher. 
Keenly  as  he  appreciated  the  enjoyments  of  life,  being 
fastidious  in  taste  and  something  of  an  epicure,  his 
wants  were  few  and  soon  satisfied.  He  was  the  most 
sociable,  the  most  lovable,  the  most  companionable  of 
men.  Perhaps  the  function  in  which  he  shone  least 
was  that  of  a  public  speaker.  I  only  heard  him  once, 
but  the  occasion  was  sufficiently  remarkable  to  be 
worth  notice.  It  was  the  Jubilee  of  the  Oxford  Union 
in  1873.  Matthew  Arnold  had  never,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  anything  to  do  with  the  Union.  But  almost 
every  Oxford  man  in  the  front  rank  of  public  life, 
except  Mr.  Gladstone,  attended  the  dinner,  including 
Lord  Chancellor  Selborne,  who  presided.  Archbishop 
Tait,  Cardinal  Manning,  Lord  Salisbury,  and  Sir  John 
Duke  Coleridge.  Mr.  Arnold  was  to  respond  for  Lit- 
erature, Avhich  had  been  proposed  by  that  accomplished 
orator.  Dr.  Liddou.  But  whether  he  was  unwell,  or 
whether  he  disliked  Liddon's  urbane  irony,  he  replied 
in  a  single  sentence  rather  too  sarcastic  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  not  worth  reproducing  at  this  distance  of 
time. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  through  Mr.  Arnold's  books 
and  letters  without  feeling  that  he  was  a  good  man 
in  the  best  sense  of  that  term.  His  character  was  a 
singularly  engaging  one,  and  it  rested  upon  solid 
virtues  which  are  less  common  than  amiability.  A 
better  son,  husband,  father,  there  could  not  be.  His 
moral  standard  was  much  the  same  as  Dr.  Arnold's, 
and  how  high  that  was  everybody  knows.     In  reli- 


XIV.]  CONCLUSION  173 

gious  matters  he  departed  very  widely  from  the  school 
of  thought  in  which  he  had  been  reared.  That  he  was 
himself  a  sincerely  religious  man,  and  deeply  inter- 
ested in  religious  questions,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt. 
But  his  religion  was  so  peculiar  that  it  can  scarcely 
have  much  permanent  influence  upon  mankind.  Chris- 
tianity without  miracles,  and  without  dogmatic  theol- 
ogy, is  not  only  practicable,  but  has  sufficed  for  some 
of  the  best  Christians  that  ever  lived.  It  is  probably 
the  religion  of  most  educated  laymen  in  the  Church  of 
England  to-day.  But  Christianity  without  a  personal 
God,  without  anything  more  definite  than  a  tendency 
not  ourselves  which  makes  for  righteousness,  seems  to 
have  neither  past  nor  future.  It  is,  in  the  language 
of  the  book  which,  with  all  his  learning,  Mr.  Arnold 
knew  best,  salt  which  has  lost  his  savour,  Mr.  Ar- 
nold's unfortunate  habit  of  quoting  the  Bible  in  a 
translation  of  his  own  deprived  the  passages  so  ren- 
dered of  their  hold  upon  the  English  mind.  His  con- 
tributions to  pure  literature,  on  the  other  hand,  seem 
secure  of  a  permanent  place  in  the  shelves  and  the 
minds  of  Englishmen.  Mr.  Arnold,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  his  critical  limitations.  He  excluded  too  much. 
But  judging  his  critical  work,  as  talent  should  be 
judged,  at  its  best,  one  can  hardly  overpraise  it.  It  is 
original,  penetrating,  lucid,  sympathetic,  and  just.  Of 
all  modern  poets,  except  Goethe,  he  was  the  best  critic. 
Of  all  modern  critics,  with  the  same  exception,  he  was 
the  best  poet.  No  one,  not  even  Mr.  Lecky,  more 
abounds  in  telling  and  appropriate  quotations.  As 
a  poet  he  ranks  only  l)elow  the  greatest  of  all. 
Though  he  felt  the  influence  of  Wordsworth,  he  was 
no  imitator.     He  was  a  voice,  not  an  echo.     A  popular 


174  MATTHEW   ARNOLD  [chap. 

poet,  as  Byron  was,  as  Tennyson  is,  lie  never  was,  and 
is  never  likely  to  be.  He  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
written  for  University  men,  and,  as  we  may  say  nowa- 
days, for  University  women.  As  a  critic  he  was  in- 
capable of  obscurity  or  of  inaccuracy.  His  scholarship 
was  as  sound  as  it  was  brilliant.  He  had  the  instinct 
of  the  journalist,  and  was  never  at  a  loss  for  an 
appropriate  heading. 

Matthew  Arnold's  appearance  was  both  impressive 
and  agreeable.  He  was  tall,  of  commanding  presence, 
with  black  hair,  which  never  became  grey,  and  blue 
eyes.  He  was  shortsighted,  and  his  eye-glass  gave  him 
a  false  air  of  superciliousness,  accentuated  by  the  clever 
caricaturist  of  Vanity  Fair.  In  reality  he  was  the  most 
genial  and  amiable  of  men.  But  he  had  a  good  deal  of 
manner,  which  those  who  did  not  know  him  mistook  for 
assumption.  It  was  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  a  mixture 
of  old-fashioned  courtesy  and  comic  exaggeration.  Mr. 
Arnold  was  always  willing  to  tell  a  story,  or  to  join 
in  a  laugh,  against  himself.  Eoughness  or  rudeness  he 
could  not  bear.  He  was  essentially  a  polished  man  of 
the  world.  He  never  gave  himself  airs,  or  seemed 
conscious  of  any  superiority  to  those  about  him.  Con- 
siderate politeness  to  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor, 
obscure  and  eminent,  was  the  jjractice  of  his  life.  His 
standard  was  the  standard  of  a  Christian  gentleman,  his 
models  in  that  respect  were  such  men  as  Newman  and 
Church.  He  enjoyed  not  only,  with  the  exception  of 
his  hereditary  complaint,  good  health  and  good  spirits, 
but  one  of  those  happy  temperaments  which  diffuse  and 
radiate  satisfaction.  No  one  could  be  cross  or  bored 
when  Matthew  Arnold  was  in  the  room.  He  was 
always  amusing,  and  always  seemed  to  look  at  the 


iiT.]  CONCLUSION  175 

bright  side  of  things.  Xatiirall}^  sociable,  and  in  a 
modest  way  convivial,  he  took  pleasure  both  in  the 
exercise  and  in  the  acceptance  of  hospitality.  He 
knew  good  wine  from  bad,  and  was  not  ashamed  to 
admit  the  knowledge.  His  talk  was  witty,  pointed, 
and  often  irresistibly  droll.  Although  public  speaking 
did  not  suit  him,  he  had  a  very  flexible  voice,  admir- 
ably fitted  for  the  dramatic  rendering  of  a  story,  or 
for  the  purposes  of  satirical  criticism.  He  could  be 
very  dogmatic  in  conversation,  but  never  aggressive 
or  overbearing.  For  a  poet  he  was  surprisingly  prac- 
tical, taking  a  lively  interest  in  people's  incomes,  the 
rent  of  their  houses,  the  produce  of  their  gardens,  and 
the  size  of  their  families.  He  had  none  of  AVords- 
worth's  contempt  for  gossip,  and  his  father's  strenuous 
earnestness  had  not  descended  to  him.  "  Habitually 
indulging  a  strong  propensity  to  mockery,"  as  Macaulay 
says  of  Halifax,  he  was  never  ill-natured,  and  never 
willingly  gave  pain.  He  would  make  fun  of  the  people 
he  loved  best,  but  he  always  did  it  good-humouredly. 
His  theoretical  belief  in  the  principle  of  authority  had 
little  influence  upon  his  practice.  Mr.  Arthur  Benson, 
in  his  portly  biogi-aphy  of  his  father,  tells  us  how  the 
author  of  Literature  and  Dogma,  on  being  confronted 
with  some  paternal  dictum,  replied  with  his  confiden- 
tial smile,  "  Dear  Dr.  Arnold  was  not  infallible."  Mv. 
Arnold's  smile  was  like  a  touch  of  nature,  it  made  the 
whole  world  kin. 

It  is  not  unnatural  to  compare  or  contrast  Matthew 
Arnold  with  his  two  great  contemporaries,  Tennyson 
and  Browning.  Tennyson  was  born  thirteen  years, 
Browning  eleven  years,  before  him.  Browning  sur- 
vived him  by  a  year,  Tennyson  by  four  years.     Tonny- 


176  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  [chap. 

son  stands  almost  alone  in  literature  as  a  poet,  and 
nothing  but  a  poet,  throughout  his  long  life.  All  his 
scholarship,  all  his  knowledge,  all  the  speculative 
power  of  his  wonderful  mind,  went  into  poetry,  and 
into  poetry  alone.  Browning,  though  he  had  no  pro- 
fession, was  as  constantly  in  the  world  as  Tennyson 
was  constantly  out  of  it.  He  lived  two  lives,  the 
imaginative  and  the  actual,  with  equal  zest.  Matthew 
Arnold  was  as  sociable  as  Browning,  and  as  genuine 
a  poet.  But  he  had  to  work  for  his  living,  and  either 
the  Education  Department  or  the  critical  faculty  almost 
dried  up  the  poetic  vein.  It  was  not  that  the  quality 
of  his  verse  deteriorated,  as  the  quality  of  Browning's 
did,  and  as  the  quality  of  Tennyson's  did  not.  What 
little  poetry  he  wrote  at  the  end  of  his  life  was  good, 
and  in  the  case  of  "  Westminster  Abbey,"  very  good. 
But  he  ceased  as  a  poet  to  be  productive.  The  energies 
of  his  mind  were  drawn  into  politics,  into  theology, 
into  literary  criticism.  There  was  much  in  him  of 
his  father's  missionary  zeal.  He  longed  to  make  the 
world  better,  though  by  other  means  and  in  other 
directions  than  Dr.  Arnold's.  His  spiritual  father 
was  Wordsworth,  from  whose  grave  his  own  poetry 
may  be  said  to  have  sprung.  Wordsworth  lived  to 
be  much  older  than  Mr.  Arnold,  and,  though  his  prose 
is  exquisite,  there  is  not  much  of  it.  In  him,  too, 
great  poet  as  he  was,  the  imagination  dwindled  and 
decayed.  After  middle  age  he  produced  little  that 
lives.  Tennyson  remained  to  the  end  as  magical,  as 
imaginative,  as  musical,  as  he  had  ever  been.  We 
cannot  estimate  Matthew  Arnold's  greatness  if  we 
separate  his  poetry  from  his  criticism.  His  theologi- 
cal and  political  writings  prove  his  versatility  without 


XIV.]  CONCLUSION  177 

adding  much  to  his  permanent  reputation.  It  is  as 
the  poet  and  critic,  the  man  who  practised  what  he 
preached,  that  he  survives.  He  was  an  incarnate  con- 
tradiction of  the  false  epigram  that  the  critics  are 
those  who  have  failed  in  literature  and  art. 

The  great  fault  of  his  prose,  especially  of  his  later 
prose,  is  repetition.  He  had,  like  ]Mr.  Brooke  in 
Middle  march,  a  marked  tendency  to  say  what  he  had 
said  before.  His  defect  as  a  poet  was  the  imperfec- 
tion of  his  ear  for  rhythm.  But,  as  Johnson  said  of 
Goldsmith,  "enough  of  his  failings;  he  was  a  very 
great  man."  Such  poetry  as  M>/cerinus,  such  prose  as 
the  Preface  of  the  Essays  in  Criticism,  are  enough  to 
make  a  man  a  classic,  and  to  preserve  his  memory 
from  decay. 


INDEX 


"  Absence,"  38. 

Act  of  Uniformity,  123. 

Addisou,  61,  83. 

"  Adonai.s,"  2,  84. 

"Airy,  Fairy  Lilian"  (Tenny- 
son's), 74. 

"Alaric  at  Rome,"  quotation 
from,  10-11,  13. 

Alaricat  Rome, and  Other  Poems, 

20. 

Alexandrines,  French,  53,  83, 165. 

American  Civil  War,  59. 

Analogy  of  Religion  (Butler's), 
142. 

Anderson,  Professor,  52. 

"  Andromeda  "  (Kiugsley's),  G2. 

Anna  Karenina  (Tolstoi's),  1G8. 

Aniials  of  the  Four  Masters,  98. 

Apostles'  Creed,  138. 

Aristophanes,  52. 

Aristotle,  52,  53,  122,  1G5. 

Arminianism, Church  of  England 
stronghold  of,  123. 

Arminius  von  Thunder-ten- 
Tronckh,  12.5,  12(3-129. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  his  birth  at 
Laleham,  C;  his  father,  6-10; 
his  mother,  6;  goes  with  family 
to  Rugby,  6 ;  sent  to  Winchester, 
7;  return  to  Rugby,  7;  educa- 
tion at  Rugby,  7-11 ;  enters 
Balliol  College,  Oxford,  11; 
Newdigate  Prize,  13;  Fellow- 
ship at  Oriel,  14;  Classical 
Master  at  Rugby,  16;  Private 
Secretan,'  to  Lord  I-ans<iowne, 
17  ;  The  Strayed  Revrller,  and 
Oth^r  Poems,  20;  ai>i)oiulf'il 
au   Inspector    of   Schools,  30 ; 


marriage,  31 ;  Empedocles  on 
Etna,  and  Other  Poons,  32; 
"  Sohrab  and  Rustum,"  45; 
Poems,  second  series,  48; 
elected  Professor  of  Poetry  at 
Oxford,  51 :  takes  a  house  in 
Chester  Square,  56;  visit  to 
the  Continent,  58;  "  On  trans- 
lating Homer,"  61 ;  ^1  French 
Eton,  69 ;  Esmys  in  Criticism, 
74;  begins  work  in  Paris,  92; 
Lectures  on  Celtic  Literature, 
96;  Xeiv  Poems,  9[);  ceased  to 
be  Professor  of  Poetry,  96; 
death  of  his  eldest  son,  115; 
Culture  and  Anarchy,  115; 
St.  Paul  and  Protestantism, 
121;  Friendship's  Garland, 
125 ;  death  of  his  second  son, 
132;  settles  at  Pain's  Hill,  Cob- 
ham,  Surrey,  132;  Literature 
and  Dogma,  133;  God  and  the 
Bible,  139;  Mixed  Essays,  147; 
Irish  Essays,  151;  visit  to 
America,  154;  Discourses  in 
America,  155;  Essays  in  Criti- 
cism, second  series,  165 ;  resigns 
Inspectorship  of  Schools,  170; 
pension,  170;  death,  171. 

—  His  literary  rank,  1-5;  his 
politics,  3,  23,  57,  (W,  61,  93,  94. 
114,  145-158,  161,  171 ;  his  phil- 
osophy, 113-129  ;  his  theology, 
130-144,  161,  173;  views  on 
education,  67-71,  91,  92,  10<-^- 
112,  114;  character,  172,  173; 
personal  characteristics,  174, 
175. 

Arnold,  Ponns  by  Matthew 
(second  series) ,  48-50. 


179 


180 


INDEX 


Arnold,  Edward,  156. 

Arnold,  Miss  Fanny  (sister),  58, 
139,  154,  166. 

Arnold,  Mrs.  Frances  Lucy 
Wightman  (wife),  31,  120,  132, 
154,  171. 

Arnold,  Mrs.  Mary  Penrose  (Mat- 
thew Arnold's  mother),  6,  9, 18, 
19,  73,  92,  93,  94,  120. 

Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  3,  6-10,  11, 
14,  16,  19,  28,  94,  103,  112,  133, 
172,  173,  175,  176. 

Arnold,  William  (brother),  66. 

"Artemis  Prologises"  (Brown- 
ing's), 22,55. 

"  Ar undines  Cami,"  47. 

Aston  Clinton,  72. 

"  Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  54,  92. 

Athanasiau  Creed,  138. 

Athenaeum  Club,  50. 

Autobiography  (Mrs.  Besant's), 
159. 

B 

"  Bacchanalia,  or  The  New  Age," 
102;  quotation  from,  103. 

Bacon,  77,  150. 

"  Balder  Dead,"  48,50,66. 

Balfour,  Mr.  A.  J.,  116,  149. 

Ballads  from  Herodotus  (Rev. 
J.  E.  Bode's),  51. 

Balliol  College,  Oxford,  11-13, 16. 

Barnes,  William,  167. 

Barry  Lyndon  (Thackeray's) ,  69. 

Belgium,  Arnold's  visit  to,  as 
Foreign  Assistant  Commis- 
sioner on  Education,  58. 

Benson,  Mr.  Arthur,  175. 

Bentley,  63. 

Bernhardt,  Sarah,  164. 

Biblical  Criticism,  3,  68,  88,  131, 
132,  137,  138,  141. 

"  Bishop  and  the  Philosopher, 
The,"  68. 

Bismarck,  94. 

Blake,  William,  114. 

Bode,  Rev.  John  Ernest,  51. 

Bolmgbroke,  162. 


Bonn  University,  149. 
Bossuet,  80. 
Bowood,  Wiltshire,  18. 
Bright,  Mr.  Johu,  56,  93, 117, 149. 
British  Quarterly  Review,  79. 
Brooke,  Mr.  Stopford,  94,  161. 
Browning,  Mrs.,  27,  55. 
Browning,  Robert,  20,  22,  32,  33, 

43,  55,  91,  99,  175,  176. 
Brunelleschi,  93. 
Bryce,  Mr.,  157. 
Buckland,  Rev.  John,  6. 
Buloz,  M.,  79. 
Bunyan,  97,  119. 
Burials  Bill,  146,  147. 
"  Buried  Life,  The,"  39. 
Burke,  3,  71,  76-78,  80,  151,  152, 

162. 
Burns,  47,  50,  85,  166. 
Butler,  Bishop,  123,  124,  134, 141- 

143. 
Byron,  Lord,  10, 11, 19,  32,  33,  73, 

85,  168,  174. 


Cairns,  Lord,  148. 

"Calais  Sands,"  101. 

"  Callicles,"  songs  of,  34-36. 

Calvin,  121-123. 

Cambridge,  University  of,  134. 

Camoens,  48. 

Campbell,  Mr.  Dykes,  73. 

Candide,  125,  168. 

Canning,  Lord,  98. 

Canticle  of  St.  Francis,  86. 

Carlyle,  17,  39,  54,  76. 

Caroline,  Queen,  142. 

Carteret,  Lord,  61. 

Catholic  Emancii^ation,  9,  152. 

Catholics,  106,  120,  122,  149, 150. 

Catullus,  166. 

Cavour,  57. 

Celtic  literature,  9G-98. 

Centaur e  (Maurice   de   Guerin), 

81. 
Chamberlain,  Mr.,  116. 
Chapman,  63. 


INDEX 


181 


Characteristics      (Shaftesbury), 

142. 
Charles  II.,  123. 
Chateaubriand,  66. 
Cbertsey,  18. 
Childe  Ilarohl,  10. 
Christian  Remembrancer,  48. 
"Church  of  Brou,  The,"  47. 
Church,  Dean,  14,  174. 
Church  of  England,   12,  Iti,  ()7, 

1(X).  121,  12;},  124,  i;i2,  147,  173. 
Church  of  England,   Essay  on 

Puritanism  in,  121,  123-125. 
Church  and  Relifjion,  Last  Es- 
says on,  141-143. 
Church  of  Rome,  124. 
Cicero,  113. 
Clarendon, 1G2. 
Clerkenwell  Explosion,  114. 
Clougb,  Arthur  Hugh,  2,  12,  14, 

21,  23,  45,  46,  62,  GQ,  100. 
Cobden,  93. 

Code,  The  Revised  (1862),  67,  68. 
Colenso,  Bishop,  3,  68,  69. 
Coleridge,  Lord,  10,  12, 14,  23,  48, 

73,  153,  155,  165,  172. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  53,  87. 
Collects  of  the  English  Church, 

79,80. 
Couington,  Professor,  92. 
"Consolation,"  39. 
Constantine,  89. 
Contemporary  Review,  139. 
Cook,  Eliza,  147. 
"Copyright,"  Essay,  153. 
Corn  Laws,  10. 
Cornhill  Magazine,  96,  121. 
Cowley,  L/jrd,  58. 
Creweian  Oration,  68,  91. 
"Cromwell"  (poem),  13. 
Culture  and  Anarchy,  115-119, 

121. 
"Cymbcline,"  100. 

D 

Daily  Teh  graph,  75.  114. 
Dante,  163. 


De  Gue'rin,  Mademoiselle,  84. 

De  Guerin,  Maurice,  81,  167. 

De  Gucrius,  74,  81,  82. 

De  Rothschild,  Sir  Anthony,  72. 

De  liotbscbild,  Lady,  113. 

"Decade,  The"  (Debating  So- 
ciety), 14. 

Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill,  129. 

"Democracy,"  essay,  (>0. 
1  Dcuison,  Archdeacon,  30. 
I  Denison,  Speaker,  95. 
I  Derby,  Ixird,  61,  72. 
I  Descartes,  140. 

Deutsch,  113. 

Diary  of  Amiel,  168. 

Discourses  in  America,  155,  156. 

Disestablishment,  LT),  147. 

Disraeli,  Mr.  (Lord  Beaconsfield), 
()9,  72,  95,  162. 

Dissenters,  5,  23,  79,  106,  117, 
118,  121,  123,  146,  147. 

"Dover  Beach,"  quotation  from, 
101,  102. 

Dowdeu,  Professor,  168. 

Doyle,  Sir  Francis,  91. 

Dresden,  93. 

Dryden,  19,  77. 

Dublin,  Trinity  College,  149. 

"Dunciad"  (Pope's),  63. 

Duomo,  Florence,  93. 

E 

Ecce  Homo,  139. 

Eccentricities  of  Genius  (Major 
Pond's),  154. 

Eckermann,  134. 

l^cole  Normale,  108. 

lidiuburgb  Philosophical  Institu- 
tion, 142. 

Edinburgh  Review,  79. 

Edinburgh  Theatre,  164. 

Education  Dci):irtnieiit,  30,  10(j, 
110,  170,  171,  176. 

Egyi)t,  151. 

Eisteddfod,  97. 

"  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard"  (Gray's),  167. 


182 


INDEX 


Elizabethan  Age,  151. 

Elwes,  Mr.  Robert,  89. 

Empedocles  on  Etna,  and  Other 
Poems,  32-41. 

Empedocles  on  Etna,  33-36,  42, 
55,  99. 

Endowed  Schools  Act,  120. 

Endowed  School  Commissioners, 
70. 

England  and  the  Italian  Ques- 
tion, 57. 

English  Poets,  Selections  from 
the  (Ward's),  165. 

Epictetus,  22,  90. 

"Equality,"  essay,  147, 148. 

Erse,  96,  98. 

Esmond  (Thackeray's) ,  69. 

Essay  on  Man  (Pope's),  83. 

Essays  and  Revieivs,  60. 

Essays  in  Criticism,  4,  72-90, 
177. 

Essays  in  Criticism,  second  se- 
ries, 1G5-109. 

Eton,  69,  70,  109,  163. 

"Eton,  A  French,"  69. 

Euripides,  52. 

Evangelicals,  121. 

' '  Evangeline ' '  (Longfellow's) , 
62. 

Ewald,  3,  131. 

Examiner,  The,  19. 

Excursion  (Wordsworth's),  167. 

F 

"  Faded  Leaves,"  50. 
Falkland,  Lord,  162. 
"Farewell,  A,"  39. 
Fenians,  114. 

Fitch,  Sir  Joshua,  107,  131,  132. 
Florence,  93,  100. 
Fontanes,  M.,  131,  151. 
Forster,  W.  F.,  60,  61,  120. 
Forster,  Mrs.    (Arnold's  sister), 

31,  45,  50,  54,  59,  94. 
Fourth    Gospel,    130,    138,    139, 

141. 
Fox  How,  6. 


"Fragment  of  an  'Antigone,'" 
22. 

France,  Arnold's  visit  to,  as  For- 
eign Assistant  Commissioner 
on  Education,  58;  inquiry  into 
working  of  elementary  educa- 
tion in,  171. 

France,  Popular  Education  in, 
60. 

Eraser's  Magazine,  104. 

Frederick  the  Great,  94. 

French  Academy,  80,  81. 

French  criticism,  78,  79. 

French  education,  69-71,  107-110, 
111. 

French  language,  107,  108,  111. 

"  French  Play  in  London,"  essay, 
163,  164. 

French  people,  58,  93,  156. 

French  scholars,  97. 

Free  education,  171. 

Friendship's  Garland,  125-129. 

"From  Easter  to  August,"  es- 
say, 158. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  11,  54. 

G 

Gadarene  swine,  137. 

Gaelic,  96. 

Garnett,  Richard,  20. 

"  Geist's  Grave,"  160,  161. 

Genoa,  Duke  of,  120. 

German  education,  108,  110-112. 

German  Rationalists,  139. 

Germany,  Arnold's  visit  to, 
as  Foreign  Assistant  Com- 
missioner on  Education,  92; 
inquiry  into  working  of  ele- 
mentary education  in,  171. 

Gesenius,  131. 

Gibbon,  39,  83. 

Gladstone,  Mr.,  9,  56,  61,  64,  72, 
95,  96,  120,  130,  134,  140,  142, 
146,  1.53,  1,56-158,  170,  172. 

"Gleam"  (Tennyson's),  21. 

Gloucester,  Bishoi>  of,  133. 

God  and  the  Bible,  139-141. 


INDEX 


183 


Gixiwin,  168. 

Goeihe,  4,  32,  33,  39,  73,  85,  88, 

1*1,  136,  1(32.  1(>3,  173. 
'■Goethe,  A  French  Critic  ou," 

162. 
Goldsmith,  77,  177. 
'•  Gorgo,"  85. 
Gospels,  The,  130, 138. 
Grammar  of  Af<s€nt  (Newman's), 

87. 
'•  Grande     Chartreuse,     Stanzas 

from  the,"  104,  105. 
Grant,  General.  154,  156,  157. 
Grant.  Duff.  Mr.,  145. 
(nay,  34.  KJG,  1(37. 
Greece.  32.  51. 
Greek  drama,  43,  44,  52,  53. 
Greek  language.  111,  138, 166. 
(ireek  life,  163,  164. 
Greenwood,  Frederick,  l'-'5. 
Guest,  Lady  Charlotte,  98. 

H 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  122. 
Haniplen,  Dr.,  9. 
Harnack,  Professor,  141. 
Harri-sou,  Frederic,  130. 
Harrow,   70,   85,    109,    115,    120, 

1,32. 
Hawkins,  Dr.,  7,  14. 
Hawtrey,  Dr.,21,62,6.3. 
Hawtrey,  Mr.  Stephen,  69. 
"  Hay.swater  Boat,  The,"  20,  28. 

Hazlitt,  74. 

Headiiigton  Hill,  2. 

Hebraism,  3,  121. 

Heine,  18,  19,  75,  82,  84,  85. 

"Heine'.sGrave,"19,  103,  104. 

Hellenism,  3,  113,  121. 

Hermione,  I'll. 

Herrxiotus,  24. 

Holland,  Arnold's  visit  to,  as 
Foreign  Assistant  Commis- 
hioner   on    Kducation,   'A. 

Home  Uule,  1."^),  151,  l.'Vi-l.W. 

Homer,  17,  22,  -'9,  4<3,  48,  59,  (31- 
«36,  75,  125,  1(3.5. 


"Homer,  Last  Words  on  trans- 
lating," 61,  (36. 
Horace,  3,  8;3,  84.  124. 
Hugo,  Victor,  8;i,  156,  164, 165. 
Hungarians,  57. 
Huxley,  Professor,  107. 
Hyde  Park  Rioters,  114. 
"  Hymn  to  Adonis,"  85,  86. 


Idylls  of  the  King  (Tennyson's), 

59. 
"  II  Penseroso  "  (Milton's),  21. 
Iliad  (Homer's) ,  ()2-(>4. 
In  Memoriam  (Tennyson's),  59, 

73. 
"  In  Memory  of  the  late  Edward 

Quillinani  Esq.,"48. 
"  lucompatibles.    The,"     essay, 

152,  153. 
Inferno  (Dante's),  162. 
"  introduction      to       Collected 

Poems,"  42-45,  52. 
Ipswich,  151. 
Irish  Catholic   University,   148- 

150. 
"Irish  Catholicism  and  British 

Liberalism,"  essay,  149. 
Irish  Church,  114,  147. 
Irish  Essays,  150,  151-153,  1(33. 
Irish  Land  Acts,  14(3,  152. 
Irisih  Melodies  (Moore's),  27. 
Irish  question,  149,  150,  151-153, 

157,  158. 
Irving,  Sir  Heniy,  155. 
"Isabella"  (Keats's),  44. 
Israel's  Restoration,  The  Great 

Prophecy  qf,  131,  132. 
Italian  (Government,  119,  120. 
luily,  57,  92,  93,  107. 


•Jcbb,  Sir  Richard,  64. 
.Jcnkyns,  Dr.,  12. 
•Tones,  t)wcM,97,  98. 
Joubert,Hl,  8(1,87. 


184 


INDEX 


Jowett,  Dr.,  12,  63,  124,  125. 
Judaism,  113,  123. 

K 

"Kaiser  Dead,"  160. 
Kay-Shuttle  worth,  Sir  James,  67. 
Keats,  2,  22,  44,  63,  74,  81,  82, 167. 
Kiugsley,  Charles,  21,  54,  62. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  119. 
Kuenen,  131. 

L 
Lacordaire,  70. 
Laleham,  6,  13,  18,  132. 
Lang,  Andrew,  64. 
Lansdowne,  Lord,  17,  18,  30,  57, 

145. 
"  Laodamia  "     (Wordsworth's), 

25. 
"Last  Word,  The,"  102. 
Latin,  107, 112,  166. 
Laud,  Archbishop,  123. 
Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  (Macau- 
lay's),  26,  64. 
"  L' Allegro  "  (Milton's),  2L 
Lecky,  Mr.,  173. 
Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church 

(Stanley's),  69. 
Lectures  on  Modern  History  (Dr. 

Arnold's),  60. 
Lectures  on  translating  Homer, 

17,  61-66. 
Leighton,  Archbishop,  140. 
Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord  (Burke's) , 

77. 
Letters  (Matthew  Arnold's),  139, 

146,  166,  170. 
Letters    on    a    Regicide    Peace 

(Burke's),  77. 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  54. 
Liddon,  Dr.,  172. 
Life    of    Frederick    Robertson 

(Stopford  Brooke's),  94. 
Life  of  Shelley  (Dowden's),  168. 
Lincohi,  President,  157. 
' '  Lines    written    in   Kensington 

Gardens,"  40. 
Lingeu,  Lord,  30,  67. 


"  Literature,  The  Modern  Ele- 
ment in,"  51,  52. 

Literature  and  Dogma,  131, 132- 
139,  140,  144,  169,  170,  175. 

Literature,  Primer  of  English 
(Stopford  Brooke's),  161,  162. 

Livy,  131. 

London,  University  of,  112. 

Long,  Mr.,  90. 

Longfellow,  21,  62. 

Lowe,  Mr.  Robert,  67,  68. 

Lucau,  40. 

Lucretius,  83,  134. 

Luther,  86,  97,  122,  124. 

"Lycidas,"21,  100. 

Lytton,  Lord,  45,  114. 

M 

Mabinogion     (Lady      Charlotte 

Guest's),  98. 
Macaulay,  Lord,  11, 17,  18,  26,  64, 

125,  146,  175. 
Macmillan's  Magazine,  52, 68,69. 
Maine,  Sir  Heniy,  3. 
Manning,  Cardinal,  172. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  82,  89,  90,  115. 
"Marguerite,"  38. 
Martineau,   Dr.  James,  92,  117, 

135. 
Maurice,  Frederick,  138. 
"  May  Queen  "  (Tennyson's),  74. 
Meditations  (Marcus  Aurelius'), 

89. 
Melbourne,  Lord,  11. 
"Memorial  Verses,"  32. 
Merimee,  Prosper,  58. 
"  Merman,  The  Forsaken,"  27. 
"  Merope,"  52-55,  92. 
Milan,  93. 
Mill,  James,  142. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  .58,  122,  147. 
"Mill  on  Liberty,"  58. 
Milton,  2,  20,  21,  24,  77,  100,  147, 

159,  160,  162,  166. 
"Milton,  A  French  Critic  on," 

162. 
Mixed  Essays,  147-151,  161-162. 


INDEX 


185 


Moberly,  Dr.,  7. 

^fuilern  Painters  (Raskin's),  50. 

Moliere,  156. 

Moore.  Thomas,  27,  98. 

"  Morality, "41. 

Morley,  Mr.  .lolin.  140,  170. 

3Iorlev,  Mr.  Saimiel,  153. 

Miiller,  Max,  13. 

Murmi/'s  Magazine,  156,  157. 

J/y  Xovel,  45. 

■•  Myceriuiis,"  24-26,  177. 

Ml/cyrian  Arcfissulogy,  98. 

N 

Napoleon,  Emperor  Louis,  57, 58. 
Neic  Poems,  9«)-105. 
"New  Sirens.  The,"  27. 
New  York,  154. 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  61,  67. 
Newdigate  Prize,  13,  91. 
Newman,  Francis,  Ki. 
Newman,  John  Heniy,  11,  22,63, 

87,  118,  124,  132,  174. 
Nicene  Creed.  1.J8. 
Xineteenth  Century,  145, 156, 158. 
Nonconformist,  newspaper,  117. 
Nonconformists.    S'C  Dissenters. 
"Numbers,  or  the  M.ijoritj'  and 

the  Remnant,"  essay  on,  155, 

15(>. 

O 

Obermann,  39,  66,  134. 

"  Obermann,  Stanzas  in  Memorj' 
of  the  Author  of,"  39. 

O'Currj',  Eugene,  98. 

"  Ode  to  the  West  Wind  "  (Shel- 
ley's), 84. 

Odyssey,  63,  64. 

"Oil  the  Rhine, "quotation  from, 
.37. 

"One  Wonl  More"  (Brown- 
ing's), 21. 

Oriel  G.llege,  Oxford,  12, 14, 168. 

OrjilK-us,  29. 

Oxford,  2,  7,  11-15,  'M),  47,  67,  68, 
72,  76,  100,  101,  108,  116,  118, 
122,  142,  154,  172. 


Oxford  Movement.    See  Tracta- 

rianisui. 
Oxfonl  Union,  172. 
Oxford,  University  College,  12. 


Pall  Mall  Gazette,  12.-.,  165. 
Palmerstou,    Loi-d,    68,    72,    93, 

94. 
Pantheism,  40,  122. 
Paracelsus  (Browning's),  20,  33. 
Paradise  (Dante's),  162. 
Paradise  Lost,  162. 
Paris,  University  of,  108. 
Parliament,  145. 
"Partiiig,"37,  38,  65. 
Pascal,  143. 

Pattison,  Mark,  11,  12,  78. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  M,  114. 
Pendemiis  (Thackeray's),  69. 
Pentateuch,  68. 
Pericles,  51. 
Petronius,  89. 
Phcdre  (Racme's),  83. 
"Philistines,"  75,  76,  78,  84,  116, 

U.S. 
Phiynichus,  44. 
Piedmont,  58. 
Pindar,  164. 
Pitt,  94. 
Plato,  1,  8,  90,  122,  125,  140,  155, 

164. 
"Poesy,  Progress  of"  (Gray's), 

35,  167. 
Poles,  57. 
Polycarp,  89. 
Pond,  Major,  154. 
"Poor  Matthias,"  161. 
Pope,  63,  <>4,  K3,  84. 
"  Praxinoe,"  85. 
"Prelude"  (Wordswortli's),  40, 

167. 
Prince  Con.sort,  68. 
Procter,  Adelaide,  66. 
"Progress,"  41. 
Protestants,  122,  149,  1.50. 
Prussia,  57,  iM,  110,  111,  125. 


186 


INDEX 


Purgatorio,  162. 
Pusey,  Dr.,  162. 

Q 

Quarterly  Review,  79,  113. 

R 

"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  34. 

Rachel  (actress),  164. 

Racine,  53,  83,  165. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  51. 

Real  Estates  Intestacy  Bill,  148. 

Reform  Act  ol  1867,  114. 

Reisehilder  (Heine's),  19. 

Renan,  3. 

Report  upon  Schools  and  Univer- 
sities on  the  Continent,  107, 108. 

Republic  (Plato's),  124,  125. 

"Requiescat,"  47. 

"Resignation,"  28-29. 

"Resolution  and  Independence" 
(Wordsworth's),  167. 

Resurrection  (Tolstoi's),  168. 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  78,  79. 

Robertson,  Rev.  Frederick,  94. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  40. 

Roman  Empire,  89,  90. 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  22. 

Rugby,  6-11, 13, 16, 17,  66,  70, 108, 
109. 

"Rugby  Chapel,"  quotation 
from,  8-9,  21,  103. 

Raskin,  John,  4,  50,  63,  74. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  17,  46,  95, 145. 

Russell,  Mr.  George,  17,  115,  125, 
130,  146,  155. 

S 

St.  Augustine,  124. 

Sainte-Beuve,  4,  58,  66,  73,  81,  82, 
87,  162. 

"Saint  Brandan,"  101. 

St.  Francis,  86. 

St.  James,  137. 

St.  Margaret's  Church,  West- 
minster, 166. 


St.  Paul  and  Protestantism,  121- 

123,  131. 
St.  Paul,  121-123,  136,  137, 164. 
St.  Peter,  159. 

Saintsbuiy ,  Professor,  43,  82, 130. 
Sala,  George  Augustus,  125,  126. 
Salisbuiy,   Lord,   139,    157,    158, 

172. 
Sand,  George,  82,  163. 
Sandford,  Lord,  171. 
Scherer,  M.,  162. 
"Scholar   Gipsy,  The,"   13,  47, 

48,  101. 
Schools  Inquiry  Commissioners, 

92. 
Science  of  Origins,  97. 
Scotland,  Schools  of,  108. 
Second  Empire,  23. 
Secondary  Education,   146,   150, 

151. 
Selborne,  Lord  Chancellor,  172. 
"  Self-Dependence,"  38. 
Sellar,  Professor,  166. 
Senancour,  39,  134. 
Seneca,  38,  39. 
"  Separation,"  48-50. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  137. 
Settled  Land  Act,  148. 
Shairp,  John  Campbell,  13. 
Shakespeare,  22,  23,  29, 44,  53,  59, 

77,  145,  161,  162,  167. 
Shelley,  47,  73,  84,  85,  168. 
Shotover,  2. 
"  Sick  Kmg  m  Bokhara,  Tlie," 

26. 
Sion  College,  143. 
"  Skylark  "  (Shelley's),  168. 
Smith,  Mr.  George,  96,  115. 
Smith,  Goldwiu,  78,  122,  142. 
Smith  and  Elder,  115. 
"  Sohrab  and  Rustum,"  46,  48,  49, 

66. 
Sophocles,  1,  22,  29,  44,  51,  86. 
Sorreze,  70. 
Southey,  23. 
Spain,  120. 
Spectator,  94. 


ISDEX 


187 


Spencer,  Herbert,  92. 

Spiuoza,  G8,  Gil,  82,  88,  89. 

Staines,  G.  18. 

Stanley,  Dean,  7,  8,  12,  23,  69, 
159. 

Sterne,  19. 

Strausiford,  Lord,  9(5. 

Strasburg  University,  149. 

Strayed  Reveller,  and  Other 
Poems,  The,  20-29. 

"  Study  of  Poetry,  The,"  165-1(57. 

Sulpicius.  39. 

Swift,  Dean,  19,  77,  118. 

Swinburne,  Mr.,  27,  32,  37,  100, 
168. 

Switzerland,  Arnold's  visit  to,  as 
Foreign  Commissioner  on  Edu- 
cation, 58;  inquirj'  into  work- 
ing of  elementary  education  in, 
171. 

"  Switzerland,"  poem,  38,  101. 


Tacitus,  89,  137. 

Tait,  Dr..  16,  172. 

Talmud,  113. 

Tathaiu,  Miss  Emma,  84. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  80. 

Temple,  Dr.,  16,  54,  66. 

Temps,  newspaper,  162. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  13,  20, 
22,  "29,  .32,  .59,  fu),  73,  74,  100, 
168,  174-176. 

Thackeray,  69. 

Theocritus,  26,  28,  85,  86,  100. 

Thom])Son.  Dr.,  ()3. 

Thucydides,  8,  51. 

"  Thy rsis,"  2, 13 ;  quotation  from, 
100-101. 

Tj/nca,  7%*?,  79. 

"  Tithonus  "  (Tennyson's),  74. 

"To  an  Independent  Preacher," 
2.3,  .37. 

"  To  ;i  Gip.sy  Child  by  the  Sea- 
shore," 27. 

"To  a  Republican  Friend,"  23, 
24. 


"To    the    Hungarian    Nation," 

quotation  from,  19. 
Tolstoi,  168,  169. 
To)n  Brown's  School  Days,  7. 
Toulouse  Lyceum,  69,  70. 
Tract  xc.  118. 
Tractarianism,  3,  9,  11,  1.3. 
Tractatus      Theologico-Politicus 

(Spinoza's),  89. 
Trevelyan,  Sir  George,  125. 
Tribune,  New  York,  154. 
Truiity  College,  Dublin,  149. 
"Tristram  and  Iseult,"  3G,  37. 
Tiibingen  School,  The,  3. 
Turgot,  148. 

U 

Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, l.-)2. 

Unitarians.  Arnold's  curious  di.s- 
like  of,  133. 

United  States,  92,  iU,  148,  153, 
154,  157,  171. 

Universities,  English,  108,  110, 
111. 

Universities,  French,  111. 

Universities,  German,  111. 


Vanity  Fair  (Thackeray's),  69. 
Vanity  Fair,  newspaper,  174. 
Vaughan,  Master  of  the  Temple, 

8. 
Victor  Emmanuel,  57,  120. 
Victoria  Regia,  (5(>. 
Villette,  45. 
Virgil,  40,  83. 
Voltaire,  52,  53;  compared  with 

Homer,  64,  126. 

W 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  61,  94. 
Ward,  Dr..  118. 
Ward,  Mr.  Hiimpliry,  !•>•"). 
Walton,  Dr.,  166. 
Wcstbiiry,  Lord,  162. 
"Westminster    Al)bev,"    .32,   W, 
159;  quotation  from,  160,  176. 


188 


INDEX 


Whately,  Archbishop,  14. 

"  When  the  Lamp  is  shattered" 
(Shelley's),  168. 

Wightman,  Mr.  Justice,  31. 

Wilberforce,  Bishop,  72,  73. 

Winchester,  7,  109. 

Winchester,  Bishop  of,  133. 

"  Wine  of  Cyprus  "  (Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's), 27. 

"Wizard  of  the  North,  The,"  52. 

Wordsworth,  1,  7,  13,  18,  20,  22, 
24,  25,  29,  32,  33,  35,  40,  48,  73, 
74,  167,  168,  173,  175,  176. 


Wright,  Mr.,  75. 


Young,  Lord,  167. 
"Youth  of  Man,  The,"  40. 
"Youth  of  Nature,  The,"  40. 


"  Zenith  of  Conservatism,  The," 

158. 


ENGLISH   MEN   OF   LETTERS 


EDITED    BY 

JOHN    MORLEY 
Cloth.     i2mo.    Price,  40  cents,  each 


ADDISON.    By  W.  J.  Courthope. 
BACON.     By  R.  W.  Church. 
BENTLEY.     By  Prof.  Jebb. 
BUNYAN.     By  j.  A.  Froude. 
BURKE.     By  John  Morley. 
BURNS.     By  Principal  Shairp. 
BYRON.     By  Prof.  Nichol. 
CARLYLE.     By  Prof.  Nichol. 
CHAUCER.    By  Prof.  A.  VV.  Ward. 
COLERIDGE.     By  H.  D.  Traill. 
COWPER.     By  Goldwin  Smith. 
DEFOE.     By  \V.  Minto. 
DE  QUINCEY.    By  Prof.  Masson. 
DICKENS.     By  A.  W.  Ward. 
DRYDEN.     By  G.  Saintsbury. 
FIELDING.     By  Austin  Dobson. 
GIBBON.    By  J.Cotter  Morison. 
GOLDSMITH.    By  William  Black. 
GRAY.     By  Edmund  Gosse. 
HUME.     By  T.  H.  Huxley. 
JOHNSON.    By  Leslie  Stephen. 


KEATS.     By  Sidney  Colvin. 
LAMB.     By  Alfred  Ainger. 
LANDOR.     By  Sidney  Colvin. 
LOCKE.     By  Prof.  Fowler. 
MACAULAY. 

By  J.  Cotter  Morison. 
MILTON.     By  Mark  Pattison. 
POPE.     By  Leslie  Stephen. 
SCOTT.     By  R.  H.  Hutton. 
SHELLEY.     By  J.  A.  Symonds. 
SHERIDAN.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant. 
SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY. 

By  J.  A.  Symonds. 
SOUTHEY.     By  Prof.  Dowden. 
SPENSER.     By  R.  W.  Church. 
STERNE.     By  H.  D.  Traill. 
SWIFT.    By  Leslie  Stephen. 
THACKERAY.    By  A.  Trollope. 
WORDSWORTH. 

By  F.  W.  H.  Myers. 


PUBLISHED    BY 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,    NEW   YORK 


ENGLISH  MEN  OF  LETTERS 

EDITED   BY 

JOHN   MORLEY 

THREE  BIOGRAPHIES  IN  EACH  VOLUME 


Cloth.     i2nio.    Price,  $i.oo,  each 


CHAUCER.    By  Adolphus  William  Ward.         SPENSER.     By  R.  W. 

Church.        DRYDEN.     By  George  Saintsbury. 
MILTON.     By  Mark  Pattison,  B.D.  GOLDSMITH.     By  William 

Black.        COWPER.     By  Goldwin  Smith. 
BYRON.      By  John  Nichol.  SHELLEY.       By  John   Addington 

Symonds.         KEATS.     By  Sidney  Colvin,  M.A. 
WORDSWORTH.     By  F.  W.  H.  Myers.         SOUTHEY.     By  Edward 

Dowden.        LANDOR.     By  Sidney  Colvin,  M.A. 
LAMB.      By  Alfred  Ainger.  ADDISON.      By  W.  J.   Courthope. 

SWIFT.     By  Leslie  Stephen. 
SCOTT.     By  Richard  H.  Hutton.        BURNS.     By  Principal  Shairp. 

COLERIDGE.     By  H.  D.  Traill. 
HUME.     By  T.  H.  Huxley,  F.R.S.         LOCKE.     By  Thomas  Fowler. 

BURKE.     By  John  Morley. 
FIELDING.      By  Austin  Dobson.  THACKERAY.      By  Anthony 

Trollope.        DICKENS.     By  Adolphus  William  Ward. 
GIBBON.     By  J.  Cotter  Morison.         CARLYLE.      By  John  Nichol. 

MACAULAY.     By  J.  Cotter  Morison. 
SIDNEY.     By  ].  A.  Symonds.        DE  QUINCEY.     By  David  Masson. 

SHERIDAN.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant. 
POPE.       By   Leslie   Stephen.  JOHNSON.       By   Leslie   Stephen. 

GRAY.      By  Edmund  Gosse. 
BACON.       By  R.   W.   Church.  BUNYAN.       By  J.  A.   Froude. 

BENTLEY.      By  R.  C.  Jebb. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 


lie 


SOUTHt«N«N 


ITV 


UV'     000  292  931    3 


i 


